The portion of Ireland’s total carbon emissions attributed to agriculture is so unusual, four times the EU average, that it should make policymakers curious. Do Irish people consume food to the tune of four times the European average?

The system of measurement is arbitrary, using a production basis in some economic sectors, consumption in others.

It makes no allowance for the reality that part of continental Europe’s food consumption creates emissions which get logged in Ireland.

The same criticism applies in the case of data centres. About 11% of Irish electricity output goes to data centres, versus a European average of about 2%.

The recent Generation Capacity Statement from Eirgrid charts a worsening supply situation in the years ahead

When somebody in continental Europe decides to consume more cloud computing, say by uploading smartphone videos, the stuff gets stored in a data centre in Ireland, which has rashly volunteered to shoulder the burden of the resulting emissions – not to mention the squeeze on electricity supply.

The recent Generation Capacity Statement from Eirgrid charts a worsening supply situation in the years ahead if Ireland continues this generous offer to host everyone else’s cat videos.

Ireland does not produce steel but consumes plenty. The emissions get counted somewhere else, which is not fair on them

The campaign by the inward investment agencies, notably the IDA, to attract data centres has been far too successful and negligible employment has been created. The Commission for the Regulation of Utilities should have raised the alarm several years ago.

Of course, the anomaly works in both directions. Ireland does not produce steel but consumes plenty. The emissions get counted somewhere else, which is not fair on them.

But the misattribution of emissions to producers rather than to consumers is a monster flaw in the system and, in Ireland, farming is the main casualty.

The COP 26 summit convenes in Glasgow next month

It is open to the Government to raise the measurement issue and a puzzle why it has not done so long ago.

The COP 26 summit convenes in Glasgow next month and the Irish authorities should seek a direction to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that the measurement methodology be re-visited. The measurement of food emissions by production rather than consumption is not applied, for example, to automotive fuels, where consuming countries are (quite logically) debited with the emissions.

Obscure decisions

Irish agriculture is the victim of obscure decisions about measurement taken back in the 1990s when nobody was paying great attention, since climate change was not taken seriously, and the national emission targets could be ignored, since there were no penalties for breaches. For EU members, there are now.

Everyone agrees that oil and coal generation must be phased out and that transport and space heating need to be electrified

The European Union will find it difficult to present a common position at COP 26 on one vital issue, namely the role of conventional power generation during the transition to renewables, which will take several decades. Everyone agrees that oil and coal generation must be phased out and that transport and space heating need to be electrified.

This means a far larger, and very different, electricity industry. But wind and solar are intermittent and must be backed up. The available alternatives are gas and nuclear.

There is a big divide on nuclear

Some countries are lucky enough to have substantial hydro power, but Ireland unfortunately is not one of them. Almost all EU countries accept that gas will be a key transition fuel and many (Ireland is an exception) are planning extra gas storage.

There is a big divide on nuclear. The French government has decided that nuclear is critical, while the German government has been closing relatively young nuclear stations well before it would have made commercial sense to do so. The policy dates back to the last time the Greens were in a German coalition, and they are headed back to office after the recent election. An immediate consequence will be continuing German reliance on its substantial fleet of coal stations.

It concluded that nuclear power is a safe, low-carbon energy source comparable to wind and hydropower

The Commission’s in-house scientific body, the Joint Research Centre, released an important report on nuclear power in April. It concluded that nuclear power is a safe, low-carbon energy source comparable to wind and hydropower and recommended that it should qualify for green investment status under the EU’s scheme for green financing.

Ireland’s position

Ireland has never built a nuclear station and the reasons included the large scale as well as high capital costs. But newer technologies promise both easier cost control and smaller-scale units better suited to the Irish grid.

Ireland’s anti-nuclear stance, which dates from a period when generation capacity was plentiful, contains a sizeable element of posturing

Moreover, the new electricity interconnector to France will import nuclear power, as do existing interconnectors from Britain, so Ireland’s anti-nuclear stance, which dates from a period when generation capacity was plentiful, contains a sizeable element of posturing.

Current Irish policy includes a ban on import terminals for liquefied natural gas and on gas exploration, hence poor supply security for the new gas stations that will be needed; a commitment to more data centres; and other policies which will need more electricity. It is time to back the French rather than the Germans on nuclear power in Europe.