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Project title

Irish Consumption-based Emissions

Primary Funding Agency

Environmental Protection Agency

Co-Funding Organisation(s)

n/a

Lead Organisation

Economic & Social Research Institute (ESRI)

Lead Applicant

Anne Nolan

Project Abstract

The purpose of this research is to better understand the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with consumption within Ireland. GHG emissions are generally estimated and evaluated at the point of production, using the so-called production-based accounting method. EU level and concomitant Irish level emissions targets are set using this approach and hence policy often focusses on this assessment of emissions. An alternative approach is consumption-based GHG accounting, which focuses on the consumption of goods and services (such as food, clothing, electronic equipment, etc.) by residents of a city or country, where GHG emissions are reported by consumption category rather than GHG emission source category. The consumption-based approach has been receiving increasing attention in policy making, where e.g., numerous cities around the world have been exploring their carbon footprint using consumption-based emissions inventories and countries have been examining their consumption impact in terms of reaching the Paris agreement goals. In essence, consumption-based emissions correct for emissions embedded in imports and exports. Consumption-based emissions are therefore: (production-based emissions – embedded CO2 in exported goods + embedded CO2 in imported goods). Evaluating emissions on this basis could have important implications for understanding Irish emissions given the structure of the Irish economy. For example, Ireland exports a large number of agricultural products containing high levels of embedded emissions, where agricultural production accounts for 30% of Irish GHG emissions. In a previous EPA project for Phase III of the programme, an initial assessment was completed on consumption-based emissions; this project plans to build on that work and improve the estimations. The previous work applied an input-output model developed in the ESRI Climate Economy Modelling project combined with data from EXIOBASE concerning the average emissions per type of imported good and estimated consumption-based emissions for Ireland. This initial project helped gain important insights into consumption-based emissions. However, further work would be needed to improve these estimates. In this project we propose to use the GTAP database. The GTAP Database is the centrepiece of the Global Trade Analysis Project and is a fully documented, publicly available global database containing complete bilateral trade information, transport and protection linkages. The GTAP Database represents the world economy and is utilized by thousands worldwide as a key input into most applied general equilibrium (AGE) analysis of global economic issues. Applying this database will improve the robustness of consumption-based emissions estimates. Estimating consumption-based emissions is a complex task and data comprehensiveness and reliability remains an issue. By applying a different (high quality) dataset, we can solidify our consumption-based emissions estimates for Ireland.

Grant Approved

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Research Hub

Climate Change

Research Theme

n/a

Start Date

01/08/2022

Initial Projected Completion Date

31/07/2024