Analysis: Yes, China is the world's largest greenhouse gas polluter, but that doesn't mean Ireland shouldn't try to change - Dr. Paul Deane, Senior Research Fellow, EPMG, MaREI Centre/ERI
Why is Ireland building wind and solar farms while China are building coal fired power plants and are huge global climate polluters? It's a good question and one I hear often. China is the world's largest polluter of climate-changing greenhouse gases. The Chinese economy is massively reliant on fossil fuels, and its pollution is a global problem. China must move away from polluting fossil fuels to clean energy over the next three decades to have any chance of avoiding global dangerous climate change.
But given this, why should we act in Ireland? Looking at a country is one perspective for determining who needs to take responsibility for climate change, but looking at its people is another. At a global level, Ireland as a nation is a small climate polluter. As individuals, however, we produce similar amounts of climate pollution as an average Chinese citizen. While it may not matter globally if Ireland moves away from fossil fuels, it does matter for us in terms of our energy security, well-being and energy affordability.
From DW, how China became the biggest polluter and source of renewable energy at the same time
We think of Ireland as being clean and green, but we are one of the most fossil fuel-dependent economies in Europe. Despite progress on renewable electricity, mainly from wind power, we remain highly dependent on imported fossil fuels to satisfy our needs for home heating, fuelling our cars and powering our homes.
Last year, over 80% of all the energy we used across society in Ireland was fossil fuel. Most of this was in the form of imported oil from the UK, the US, and Azerbaijan, and imported natural gas from the UK and Norway. This energy comes at a high cost; we spend about €1 million an hour on energy in Ireland and most of this money leaves the state.
The price of our reliance on fossil fuels is reflected in the high costs we pay for energy in Ireland, but it also exposes us to geopolitical volatility. We witnessed this during the past three years when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent European gas prices rocketing, and we saw our electricity bills go up because Ireland relies on natural gas for most of our electricity generation.
While we use an enormous amount of fossil fuels in Ireland, we don’t have a rich fossil fuel resource. Over the past 40 years, we have drilled 161 wells in Irish offshore waters looking for oil and gas. There have been four commercial gas discoveries and no commercial discoveries of oil.
We don’t have commercially available fuel under the ground, but we have it in abundance over the ground in terms of wind and solar, which can be used to make electricity. This can also be used to replace the traditional uses of oil and gas for transport and heating, with a cost of production of electricity comparable to natural gas today, but without the geopolitical risk and associated price volatility. This would be good for our pockets and save us money if fossil fuel prices go up, but the impacts are also good for people in terms of health and well-being.
Air pollution is caused by the combustion of fossil fuels such as coal, peat, and also poor-quality timber. The European Environment Agency estimates that 1,600 premature deaths in Ireland annually are due to air pollution from causes including cardiovascular disease and respiratory illnesses.
Irish research has also linked air pollution to an increased incidence of stroke, and higher fine particulate concentrations are associated with an increase in the prevalence of both depression and anxiety in the older population. Reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and substituting with clean energy won’t eliminate all these impacts but it will reduce them and lead to better health outcomes.
However, it is not correct to think that a transition away from fossil fuels will be cheap or easy. It will take both time (at least two decades) and significant investment, but if managed correctly, it can be affordable and worthwhile.
Investment is required to build infrastructure like bus and cycle lanes and energy-saving projects such as insulating homes and offices. Investment is also required to generate more electricity and move this electricity around the country through a bigger electricity network to replace the oil trucks that currently move oil and the gas pipelines that move gas.
The context for this investment is important because it is the additional cost over and above what we are spending already that matters. Maintaining our current fossil fuel reliance costs about €10 billion per annum. If this money is redirected to clean energy, the additional investment required to move away from fossil fuels is between 1-2% of gross domestic product per year.
This is significant but manageable and affordable, especially in the context of the wider benefit it brings to society. China must clean up its act, but let’s not use their problems to block solutions that would benefit the health, security, and well-being of people in Ireland.