The Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, has warned his Cabinet colleagues of the serious consequences for Ireland of failing to meet its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change.
The warning is contained in an aide-memoire prepared by the Minister after he found himself isolated at last month's EU environment council meeting over Ireland's failure to curb its rising greenhouse gas emissions.
According to Mr Cullen, the cost of not complying with the target of capping the increase in Ireland's emissions at 13 per cent of their 1990 levels in the 2008-2012 period could cost €260 million a year over the five-year period.
By 2000, however, emissions were already 24 per cent above 1990 levels and are set to rise to 37 per cent by 2012 unless measures proposed in the Government's National Climate Change Strategy are implemented in full.
"There is no 'get out of jail' card on this one," the Minister told The Irish Times yesterday.
"But we have a window of opportunity between now and 2008 to get our house in order and we're just going to have to do that."
With the Kyoto Protocol now certain to come into force later this year following its expected ratification by Russia, Mr Cullen said it was a "political imperative" that Ireland meet its target, preferably by reducing emissions at home.
He has told his Cabinet colleagues that the introduction of a carbon energy tax regime can no longer be avoided.
"To be effective, the tax must be levied on the basis of the carbon content of each fuel, rather than a flat energy tax," he said.
The Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, made a commitment in the Budget that plans would be advanced for a general carbon energy tax with a view to introducing it from the end of 2004, after being pressed on the issue by Mr Cullen.
It would raise the price of petrol and other oil-based fuels as well as coal, peat and other fossil fuels. Petrol, in particular, is relatively cheap, and the OECD has said there is scope to increase the price through environmental taxes.
Without the political will to take such measures, Mr Cullen has warned that Ireland would face having its emissions rights reduced by an amount equivalent to its overshoot of the Kyoto target, plus a further penalty of 30 per cent.
"These restrictions would very significantly drive up the costs both of achieving compliance and meeting more stringent targets after 2012," he said, adding that the political consequences of non-compliance would be detrimental to Ireland.
Germany, which is committed to reducing its own emissions by 21 per cent, was "taking a very hard line" on Ireland's overshoot, noting that per-capita emissions at 17.7 tonnes a year were well above the EU average of 10 tonnes.
"We must accept that the way energy is produced and consumed in Ireland today is creating long-term and potentially irreversible environmental damage," Mr Cullen said.
However, the growth in emissions was outpacing these initiatives.
As a result, the Government's climate change strategy - being reviewed this year - would have to be strengthened to prepare for further reductions to bring Ireland into compliance with Kyoto.
"Achieving our Kyoto target is a challenging task, but environmentally necessary and economically feasible."
