SDG 12.5.1 National Recycling Rate, Tonnes of Material Recycled
SDG 12.6.1 Number of Companies Publishing Sustainability Reports
SDG 12.7.1 Degree of Sustainable Public Procurement Policies and Action Plan Implementation
SDG 12.8.1 Extent to which (i) Global Citizenship Education and (ii) Education for Sustainable Development are Mainstreamed in (a) National Education Policies; (b) Curricula; (c) Teacher Education; and (d) Student Assessment
SDG 12.a.1 Installed Renewable Energy-Generating Capacity in Developing Countries (in Watts per Capita)
SDG 12.b.1 Implementation of Standard Accounting Tools to Monitor the Economic and Environmental Aspects of Tourism Sustainability
SDG 12.c.1 Amount of Fossil-Fuel Subsidies (Production and Consumption) per Unit of GDP
SDG 12.5.1 National recycling rate, tonnes of material recycled is published by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Extracts from the EPA website are provided in this section and are discussed under 3 types of waste:
The EPA published Municipal Waste Statistics for Ireland for 2019 on the 25 November 2021 and extracts are published in this section.
Municipal waste is made up of household waste and commercial waste that is similar to household waste. The EPA reports data on how much municipal waste is generated and how it is treated.
In our everyday lives we produce a general mix of waste in our homes, offices, schools and similar premises. This type of waste is called municipal waste. It is usually collected at kerbside or we can bring it to collection centres. The amount of municipal waste generated in our country is an important measure of how wasteful our everyday lives are.
Municipal Waste includes these following waste types:
1 As prescribed by Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2019/1004
Of the 3.1 million tonnes of municipal waste generated in Ireland in 2019, 37% was recycled (down slightly from 38% in 2018), 46% was used in energy recovery (up from 43% in 2018) and 15% was landfilled (up slightly from 14% in 2018). See Table 6.2 and Figure 6.1.
| % | ||||||
| Energy Recovery | 46 | |||||
| Landfilled | 15 | |||||
| Other Disposal | 0 | |||||
| Unmanaged Waste | 2 | |||||
| Recycling | 37 |
Recycling rates of municipal waste for European countries are available on the Eurostat database.
The EPA published Household Waste Statistics for Ireland for 2019 on the 16 September 2021 and extracts are published in this section.
Waste from households can be residual, recyclable or organic. It can be collected directly from households or brought to waste collections centres such as bring banks, civic amenity sites, pay to use compactors and landfills.
Ireland generated approximately:
Data on the amount of waste collected from households or brought to waste collection centres within local authority areas are presented in more detail in Table 6.3 and Map 6.1.
Regional differences are evident in the quantity of household waste collected per person at kerbside by bin type in 2019. Variations are likely to be linked with differences in the waste collection services and infrastructure provided (e.g. prevalence of two-bin vs. three-bin systems in rural vs. urban areas), variations in the proportion of the population using authorised waste collectors and behavioural factors such as bin sharing.
The EPA published Waste Packaging Statistics for Ireland for 2019 on the 10 September 2021 and extracts are published in this section.
Most of the products we buy for our homes and businesses are wrapped in packaging to protect them in transit and make them look attractive in shops. Once the goods are unpacked, the packaging becomes waste. Just over one million of the 2.9 million tonnes of municipal waste from Irish homes, schools and businesses comes from packaging waste.
Each EU member state is obliged to meet targets for the recycling and recovery of waste packaging made from glass, plastic, paper and board, metals and wood which are set out in the EU Packaging and Waste Packaging Directive. Recycling includes reprocessing materials so they can be used again. Recovery refers to the treatment of packaging material by incineration with energy recovery.
The latest data show that 2019 is the third year in a row that Ireland generated over one million tonnes of packaging waste. While Ireland met all current targets for recycling and recovery of packaging waste in 2019, future recycling targets will be challenging for Ireland.
Ireland’s overall packaging recycling rate in 2019 was 62%, down from 64% in 2018. The percentage of packaging waste incinerated for energy recovery was 33% in 2019, up from 28% in 2018.
Ireland produced 1,124,917 tonnes of packaging waste in 2019, an increase of 11% on 2018. Plastic and paper/cardboard showed the largest increases. The generally upward trend in packaging waste generation in Ireland since 2013 shows that Ireland is failing to decouple economic activity from waste generation.
To achieve environmental and climate benefits we need to reduce the overall amount of waste generated; this is because the production, transport and management of packaging waste uses up finite resources and causes carbon emissions.
Ireland achieved an overall packaging recycling rate of 62% in 2019, a decrease of two percentage points since 2018. This is consistent with the gradual fall in packaging recycling rates in recent years, from 70% in 2013 to 64% in 2018 and 62% in 2019. While current targets are being met, there are notable variations in recycling rates across the different packaging waste streams; the recycling rate for glass packaging was 84% while the recycling rate for plastic packaging was just 28%. See Table 6.4 below.
In addition, much more stringent targets will apply from 2025 and 2030. These new targets will require improvements in Ireland’s recycling rates, in particular for plastic packaging where the target will increase to 50% by 2025. See Table 6.5 below.
Recycling is better for the environment than disposal to landfill or energy recovery because it reduces the resources and energy used to produce packaging from raw materials and keeps valuable materials in circulation. For example, products made from recycled aluminium use 95% less energy than those made using virgin aluminium.
In 2019, there were 691,099 tonnes of packaging waste recycled while 370,497 tonnes were sent for energy recovery, either at municipal waste incinerators or cement kilns, (which co-incinerate this waste to generate energy). The share of plastic packaging waste sent for incineration with energy recovery has increased year-on-year from 44% in 2017 to 69% in 2019. Two-and-a-half times more plastic packaging waste was sent for incineration with energy recovery than was recycled in 2019. Incineration with energy recovery is a preferred waste management option to disposal to landfill but is less desirable than recycling. Increasing the share of packaging waste that is separately collected will help to divert more packaging waste for recycling, in line with the policy commitments in the Waste Action Plan for a Circular Economy. The reintroduction of soft plastics to Ireland’s recycling list and the forthcoming deposit return scheme for plastic drinks bottles and aluminium cans are positive steps towards increasing Ireland’s collection of packaging waste for recycling.
Of the 1.127 million tonnes of packaging waste generated in Ireland in 2019, only 0.182 million tonnes (16%) were recycled here. Glass and wood packaging accounted for most of the packing waste recycled in Ireland, with almost all paper/cardboard and plastic packaging exported abroad for recycling. This increases the emissions associated with recycling of packaging waste and missies an opportunity to capture the resource potential of materials in Ireland.
Reversing the rising tend in packaging waste generation and improving Ireland’s packaging recycling rates requires timely implementation of the policy commitments in Ireland’s Waste Action Plan for circular Economy. This will include measures aimed at preventing packaging waste, increasing reuse and separate collection, expanding the recycling list, restricting certain single-use plastics and supporting the increased use of recycled materials in packaging. See Table 6.6 and Figure 6.2 below.
| X-axis label | Recovery Rate % | Recycling Rate % | Recovery Target | Recycling Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 70 | 65 | 60 | 55 |
| 2010 | 74 | 66 | 60 | 55 |
| 2011 | 79 | 71 | 60 | 55 |
| 2012 | 87 | 74 | 60 | 55 |
| 2013 | 88 | 70 | 60 | 55 |
| 2014 | 91 | 68 | 60 | 55 |
| 2015 | 91 | 68 | 60 | 55 |
| 2016 | 88 | 67 | 60 | 55 |
| 2017 | 86 | 66 | 60 | 55 |
| 2018 | 91 | 64 | 60 | 55 |
| 2019 | 95 | 62 | 60 | 55 |
SDG 12.6.1 Number of companies publishing sustainability report currently has no national source published.
The UN metadata repository gives information on SDG 12.6.1 metadata document as follows:
For the purposes of this indicator, ‘sustainability reports’ will not be limited to stand-alone sustainability reports produced by companies but will be considered as ‘reporting sustainability information’ and expanded to other forms of reporting sustainability information, such as publishing sustainability information as part of the company’s annual reports or reporting sustainability information to the national government. This is to ensure that the focus of the indicator is on tracking the publishing of sustainability information, rather than on the practice of publishing stand-alone sustainability reports. It also ensures that the indicator interpretation is aligned with the wording of Target 12.6 which refers to promoting “the integration of sustainability information into the annual reporting cycle of companies”.
Not every report called ‘Sustainability Report’ will be counted towards the indicator. In order to be counted, they will have to comply with a ‘minimum requirement’ in terms of sustainability disclosures reported on.
While many companies report at the group level, many of their impacts will be local, and some subsidiaries or franchises produce separate sustainability reports. As a practice that should be encouraged, and one that is useful to monitor, is therefore proposed to count both the group and subsidiary/franchise level separately, as separate entities. “Company” can therefore apply to either the parent company, or a franchise or subsidiary, depending on their reporting practices.
It is proposed that, to be counted towards the indicator, companies must publish information that meets a “Minimum requirement” of disclosure. A core set of economic, environmental, social and governance disclosures of sustainability information is therefore identified. In defining these disclosure elements, the custodian agencies attempted to align with the disclosures that appear in existing related reporting frameworks, including the IIRC reporting framework, the Global Reporting Initiative Standard (GRI), the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB).
It also attempts to align with the UNCTAD Core Indicators for company reporting on the contribution towards the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals. UNCTAD has prepared Guidance on Core indicators for entity reporting on the contribution towards the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to support entities in the provision of information under indicator 12.6.1 and governments in assessing the private sector contribution to the SDGs. The Guidance reflects the Agreed Conclusions of the thirty-fourth session of the Intergovernmental Working Group of Experts on International Standards of Accounting and Reporting (ISAR), which in 2017 requested UNCTAD to develop the guiding document. The UNCTAD Guidance includes detailed definitions and data sources for the core indicators in the company accounts to assist the entities in the reporting.
The purpose is not to create a new reporting standard or framework, but to ensure that the minimum requirement for Indicator 12.6.1 is aligned with existing global frameworks currently used by companies, so that they may continue to use these frameworks and be counted towards the indicator.
While establishing a minimum requirement in terms of reporting ensures that only companies disclosing meaningful information on all aspects of sustainability are counted towards the indicator, it could be perceived as giving the message that the minimum suffices and that companies do not need to go beyond it.
Therefore, it is proposed that the methodology include an advanced level, with a further set of disclosure elements which would further provide impetus for examining and reporting on the sustainability practices and impacts of the company.
These include:
1. Stakeholder engagement
2. Assessing impacts beyond the company boundaries and along the supply chain
3. Supplier and consumer engagement on sustainability issues
4. Procurement and sourcing practices
5. Environmental performance information in the form of intensity values to be monitored over time, such as consumption of energy, water or materials per unit of production or per unit of profit
Having different levels will also allow for information to be collected on the degree of reporting of different companies, including whether the same companies produce more ambitious reports, and go further in their sustainability practices with time, such as through supplier engagement. It would allow for companies who are beginning to produce sustainability reports to be counted towards the indicator once they achieve the minimum level, but provide incentive, through their inclusion in the indicator count, for them to work towards more ambitious reporting and demonstrate their progress over time.
Data published by UNCTAD show three companies published sustainability reports at an advanced level and 11 companies published reports at a minimum level. See Table 6.7.
SDG 12.7.1 Degree of sustainable public procurement policies and action plan implementation currently has no national source published.
The UN metadata repository gives the definition in SDG 12.7.1 metadata document as follows:
The indicator measures the number of countries implementing Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) policies and action plans, by assessing the degree of implementation through an index.
To produce the index, countries self-assess the following main elements:
More details provided in SPP Index Methodology (revised February 2021).
According to the UNSD Global database for SDGs there are 5 levels of implementation:
Ireland was at level 1 in 2020 according to data reported on the UNSD Global database for SDGs.
Information on Green Public Procurement in Ireland is provided here from the Office of Government Procurement website.
Green Public Procurement (GPP) is a process where public authorities seek to source goods, services, or works with a reduced environmental impact throughout their life-cycle, compared to other goods, services, or works with the same function.
Green Tenders - An Action Plan on Green Public Procurement, adopted in 2012, is Ireland’s first National Action Plan on GPP. Green Tenders explains that GPP is a tool for sustainable development and ‘involves the integration of environmental criteria into public procurement processes. In specifying such criteria, public authorities encourage the spread of environmental technologies and the development of environmentally sound products. Where possible, public procurement policies should encourage the use of all types of environmentally friendly products – energy efficient, water conserving, recyclable, non-toxic, and low in emissions of volatile organic compounds’.
Green Tenders prioritised eight product/service groups for GPP in Ireland: construction, energy, transport, food and catering services, cleaning products and services, paper, uniforms and other textiles, and ICT. These groups were chosen according to proportion of public expenditure, scope for environmental improvement, potential impact on suppliers, potential for setting an example to private or corporate consumers, political sensitivity, existence of relevant and easy-to-use criteria, and market availability and economic efficiency.
The current Programme for Government includes a number of commitments relating to public procurement, including the development and implementation of a sustainable procurement policy, updating all frameworks in line with green procurement practice, and mandating the inclusion of green criteria in all procurements using public funds.
Climate Action Plan 2019 required the phased introduction of GPP (Action 148). Climate Action Plan 2021 references the Programme for Government commitments to developing and implementing a sustainable procurement policy and updating procurement frameworks in line with green procurement practice, and reviewing food procurement policies. Action 59 reiterates the ambition set out in Climate Action Plan 2019 and again in the Programme for Government regarding the phased introduction of GPP: ‘Mandate the inclusion of green criteria in all procurements using public funds, introducing requirements on a phased basis and providing appropriate support to procurers’. The increased climate ambition in this plan may also indirectly influence public procurement, as public bodies strive to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions through a range of approaches that may include low carbon procurement.
Ireland’s Sustainable Development Goals National Implementation Plan 2018-2020 designates the Office of Government Procurement (OGP) as leading on target 12.7 – promote public procurement processes that are sustainable, in accordance with national policies and priorities – with Green Tenders indicated as the relevant national policy.
Circular 20/2019: Promoting the use of Environmental and Social Considerations in Public Procurement was developed by the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC) and the Office of Government Procurement (OGP) in response to Climate Action Plan 2019.
To assist in the provision of green criteria that can be incorporated into public procurement in line with Circular 20/2019, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published updated Green Public Procurement Guidance for the Public Sector in September 2021.
The general guidance is accompanied by GPP criteria for ten sectors:
The criteria can be copied and pasted directly into tender documents. Methods of verification are provided for each criterion. Technical specifications, selection criteria, award criteria, and contract performance clauses are included, as appropriate for a particular category. The OGP encourages all public bodies to use, as a minimum, the core criteria in procurement, and consider the use of the comprehensive criteria where possible.
Circular 20/2019 states that DECC and the OGP will support the implementation of GPP. To this end, DECC and the OGP formed (and co-chair) an Environmental Subgroup of the Strategic Procurement Advisory Group. The subgroup includes expertise from key bodies in the environmental sphere, such as the EPA and the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland. A current focus of the subgroup is creating greater awareness, and encouraging use of, the updated Irish GPP criteria.
Information here is from the EPA’s publication ‘Green Public Procurement – Guidance for the Public Sector' (2nd Edition 2021).
Ireland has committed to implementing green public procurement (GPP) in all tenders using public funds by 2023. This will require a major shift in the practices of public bodies and the businesses they contract with. This second edition of the EPA Green Public Procurement Guidance supports this transition by providing:
The EPA's publication ‘Green Public Procurement – Guidance for the Public Sector' provides information on the up-to-date legal context.
SDG 12.8.1 Extent to which (i) global citizenship education and (ii) education for sustainable development are mainstreamed in (a) national education policies; (b) curricula; (c) teacher education; and (d) student assessment - information is provided on the UN SDG website.
The UN metadata repository gives the definition in SDG 12.8.1 metadata document as follows:
Indicator 4.7.1/12.8.1/13.3.1 measures the extent to which countries mainstream Global Citizenship Education (GCED) and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in their education systems. This is an indicator of characteristics of different aspects of education systems: education policies, curricula, teacher training and student assessment as reported by government officials, ideally following consultation with other government ministries, national human rights institutes, the education sector and civil society organizations. It measures what governments intend and not what is implemented in practice in schools and classrooms.
For each of the four components of the indicator (policies, curricula, teacher education, and student assessment), a number of criteria are measured, which are then combined to give a single score between zero and one for each component. See Methodology section for full details.
The indicator and its methodology have been reviewed and endorsed by UNESCO’s Technical Cooperation Group on the Indicators for SDG 4-Education 2030 (TCG), which is responsible for the development and maintenance of the thematic indicator framework for the follow-up and review of SDG 4. The TCG also has an interest in education-related indicators in other SDGs, including global indicators 12.8.1 and 13.3.1. The TCG is composed of 38 regionally representative experts from UNESCO Member States (nominated by the respective geographic groups of UNESCO), as well as international partners, civil society, and the Co-Chair of the Education 2030 Steering Committee. The UNESCO Institute for Statistics acts as the Secretariat.
Responses to the quadrennial reporting by UNESCO Member States on the implementation of the 1974 Recommendation concerning Education for International Understanding, Co-operation and Peace and Education relating to Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The most recent round of reporting took place in 2020-21. The results were published in the Global SDG Indicator Database in July and September 2021. See Methodology section for details of questions asked.
Requests for reports are submitted to Ministers Responsible for Relations with UNESCO who are typically Education Ministers. Reports are usually completed by government officials in Ministries of Education. Countries are requested to consult widely before submitting their reports. To assist with this, requests for reports are also copied to NGOs in official partnership with UNESCO and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
For each of the four components of the indicator a single score between zero and one is given.
Data published by the UN statistics division give the following scores for Ireland:
National education policies (0.875), curricula (0.813), teacher education (0.85) and student assessment (0.833). See Table 6.8.
At a national level, information relating to SDG 12.8.1 is outlined in the Department of Education and Skills report - ‘Education for Sustainability’ - The National Strategy on Education for Sustainable Development in Ireland, 2014-2020.
It provides a framework to support the contribution that the education sector is making and will continue to make towards a more sustainable future at a number of levels: individual, community, local, national and international. This strategy is primarily influenced by the national strategy on sustainable development, Our Sustainable Future - A Framework for Sustainable Development in Ireland, which was published by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government in 2012.
The development of the strategy was informed by a public consultation process that was facilitated by the DES, and by key messages from relevant policy documents and research literature, both national and international.
Important policy documents include:
1. United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Strategy for Education for Sustainable Development
2. EU Council conclusions on Education for Sustainable Development 2010
3. UNESCO’s Education for Sustainable Development – The Global Action Programme after 2014
This strategy has also been informed by previous work that was undertaken in this area by the DES, supported by ECO-UNESCO, in 2007.
Information here on Ireland's National Recovery and Resilience Plan is from the Government of Ireland’s website, which hosts the publication Ireland’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan 2021.
In July 2020, the European Council, made up of the Heads of State and Government of each EU Member State, adopted a historic €750 billion recovery package for Europe. This package, NextGenerationEU, is Europe’s shared response to the severe health and economic crisis caused by COVID-19. Next Generation EU is an ambitious and common recovery package which will complement and support each country’s own national response to the crisis.
The overall objective of Ireland’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan is to contribute to a sustainable, equitable, green and digital recovery effort, in a manner that complements and supports the Government’s broader recovery efforts.
SDG 12.a.1 Installed renewable energy-generating capacity in developing countries (in watts per capita) - information for Ireland is published by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland.
The UN metadata repository gives the definition of SDG 12.a.1 as follows:
The indicator is defined as the installed capacity of power plants that generate electricity from renewable energy sources divided by the total population of a country. Capacity is defined as the net maximum electrical capacity installed at the year-end and renewable energy sources are as defined in the IRENA Statute (see concepts below).
Electricity capacity is defined in the International Recommendations for Energy Statistics or IRES (UN, 2018) as the maximum active power that can be supplied continuously (i.e. throughout a prolonged period in a day with the whole plant running) at the point of outlet (i.e. after taking the power supplies for the station auxiliaries and allowing for the losses in those transformers considered integral to the station). This assumes no restriction of interconnection to the network. It does not include overload capacity that can only be sustained for a short period of time (e.g. internal combustion engines momentarily running above their rated capacity).
The IRENA Statute defines renewable energy to include energy from the following sources: hydropower; marine energy (ocean, tidal and wave energy); wind energy; solar energy (photovoltaic and thermal energy); bioenergy; and geothermal energy.
Watts per capita.
Renewable energy share in electricity data is provided by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland's (SEAI) report on Renewable Energy.
Electricity generation has been the most successful of the three modes for the development of energy from renewable sources. Renewable energy sources are now the second largest source of electricity after natural gas (See SEAI Key Statistics on Electricity). Ireland had no mandatory target for renewable energy share in electricity for 2020, but we set ourselves an ambitious national target of 40%. Renewable electricity forms the backbone of Ireland’s strategy to achieve the overall 16% renewable energy target for 2020.
In 2020, 42% of electricity came from renewable sources. Electricity generated from hydro and wind varies depending on rainfall and wind conditions. To even this out, the Renewable Energy Directive averages the wind and hydro output over a number of years. This technique is known as normalisation. Using this methodology, the renewable energy share in electricity (commonly known as RES-E) was 39.1% in 2020, falling just short of the 2020 target.
Electricity generated from renewable energy sources was 5,077.3 megawatts in 2020, nearly three times higher than the 2019 figure of 1,867.2 megawatts.
In 2020 about 1,020 watts per capita of electricity generated was from renewable energy sources, up 3% from 2019. See Table 6.9 and Figure 6.3.
| X-axis label | Installed Renewable Energy |
|---|---|
| 2015 | 3062.975 |
| 2016 | 3419.564 |
| 2017 | 4009.07 |
| 2018 | 4378.978 |
| 2019 | 4862.317 |
| 2020 | 5077.25 |
SDG 12.b.1 Implementation of standard accounting tools to monitor the economic and environmental aspects of tourism sustainability is published by the CSO, Tourism and Travel Annual Series and Household Travel Survey.
Overseas travel to Ireland generated earnings of €6,867 million in 2019. As a percentage of Gross National Income (GNI), overseas travel to Ireland rose from 2.5% in 2010 to 2.9% by 2014 but then fell back to 2.5% again by 2019. See Table 6.10 and Figure 6.4.
| X-axis label | Earnings From Trips to Ireland |
|---|---|
| 2015 | 5530 |
| 2016 | 6064 |
| 2017 | 6485 |
| 2018 | 6874 |
| 2019 | 6867 |
The tourism and travel balance data are the difference between earnings from overseas tourism and travel, and the expenditure by Irish residents abroad.
In 2019, the tourism and travel balance was €387 million, down from €1,235 million recorded in 2018. See Table 6.11.
According to the CSO Household Travel Survey, total expenditure on domestic travel by Irish residents was €2,147 million in 2019. Expenditure on holidays accounted for €1,336 million of this, while those visiting friends or relatives spent €372 million. See Table 6.12.
The figures for tourism expenditure by non-residents in Ireland and by Irish residents abroad vary across CSO publications. The Tourism and Travel release, International Accounts and National Accounts each provide slightly different figures for overseas tourism and travel due to the variation in methodologies and definitions across these outputs. The CSO National Accounts publication 'Explaining Overseas Tourism Expenditure across CSO Publications', information note explains the reasons for these differences.
SDG 12.c.1 Amount of fossil-fuel subsidies (production and consumption) per unit of GDP is published by the CSO, Environment and Climate division.
Extracts taken from Fossil Fuel Subsidies 2000-2020 report by the CSO Environment and Climate division.
Fossil fuel subsidies were estimated at €2.2 billion in 2020. In 2000, total fossil fuel subsidies were estimated at €1.5 billion in value. This increased to €2.7 billion in 2008. Between 2009 and 2016 the value was estimated as between €2.3 billion and €2.4 billion. Total fossil fuel subsidies increased in value in 2017, 2018 and 2019, reaching €2.8 billion in 2019. In 2020, fossil fuel subsidies were €2.2 billion, with the reduction in transport fossil fuel consumption due to the COVID-19 pandemic accounting for the decrease. See Table 6.13.
Direct fossil fuel subsidies accounted for 13% of total fossil fuel subsidies in 2020 while indirect subsidies arising from revenue foregone due to tax abatements accounted for 87%. See Table 6.14 above and Figure 6.5.
| Year | Direct Subsidies | Indirect Subsidies |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 0.079 | 1.4557 |
| 2001 | 0.0812 | 1.5352 |
| 2002 | 0.1008 | 1.6142 |
| 2003 | 0.149 | 1.4718 |
| 2004 | 0.1877 | 1.6979 |
| 2005 | 0.2316 | 2.1754 |
| 2006 | 0.225 | 2.3254 |
| 2007 | 0.2001 | 1.9476 |
| 2008 | 0.2248 | 2.4472 |
| 2009 | 0.3485 | 1.9124 |
| 2010 | 0.3571 | 2.0116 |
| 2011 | 0.3408 | 1.9494 |
| 2012 | 0.3891 | 1.94 |
| 2013 | 0.3907 | 1.8947 |
| 2014 | 0.4557 | 1.9761 |
| 2015 | 0.3903 | 2.0513 |
| 2016 | 0.3519 | 2.0204 |
| 2017 | 0.3543 | 2.1776 |
| 2018 | 0.305 | 2.493 |
| 2019 | 0.2641 | 2.5379 |
| 2020 | 0.2876 | 1.8662 |
In addition to estimating fossil fuel subsidies using budgetary and tax expenditure data, the CSO also calculates effective carbon rates on the main fossil fuels used in Ireland. The average effective carbon rate of a fuel is defined as net energy tax receipts divided by total tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted through combustion of the fuel.
The energy taxes included are excise duty, carbon tax, electricity tax, the National Oil Reserves Agency (NORA) Levy, the Public Service Obligation (PSO) Levy and emission permit purchases under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme.
In 2020, consumers of petrol paid an average effective rate of €267 per tonne of carbon dioxide emitted.
The average effective carbon rate on road diesel was 29% lower at €190 per tonne of carbon dioxide due to the lower excise duty rate applied to this fuel.
Carbon dioxide emissions from jet kerosene were charged at €0.09 per tonne in 2020, due to the tax exemption for commercial aviation.
Differences in effective carbon rates in different sectors are mainly due to different excise rates applied to fossil fuels used for different purposes, e.g. transport or heating, and exemptions from energy taxes for specific uses such as commercial aviation and electricity generation. See Table 6.14 and Figure 6.6.
| Fuel | 2020 |
|---|---|
| Road - Petrol | 266.919 |
| Road - Diesel | 189.812 |
| Rail - Diesel | 49.5109 |
| Jet Kerosene | 0.092 |
| Aviation Gasoline | 186.655 |
| Marine - Diesel | 8.02509750883602 |
| Marine - Fuel Oil | 0 |
| Electricity Generation | 6.97201497214745 |
| Industry | 15.6596256358512 |
| Services | 29.1187615341433 |
| Agriculture and Fishing | 40.3301303071364 |
| Household Heating | 27.1961349479694 |
| Electricity Consumption | 30.9740722404496 |
Go to next chapter: Background Notes
Learn about our data and confidentiality safeguards, and the steps we take to produce statistics that can be trusted by all.