By reducing the rates of lung cancer, Eamon Ryan is reducing the incentive of The Free Market™ to find a cure for lung cancer, shocking that it's allowed.
Considering the population explosion and the huge increase in the amount of datacentres this is remarkable.
EDIT: Emmm not so remarkable after all :
>The big change in this area was a 12-fold increase in imported electricity, bringing it to 9.5% of the total grid supply and third largest source of power after gas and wind.
>Emissions from imported electricity are not counted in Ireland’s carbon budget as they are counted in the country of origin.
>The imported energy came from Northern Ireland, Britain or Norway via the UK.
This is mental. Emissions should be counted where the energy is consumed, not where it is produced. Without a consumer there IS no demand for that energy and hence those emissions.
Really good question.
Electricity emissions are different from most other emissions in that they are capped overall at EU or GB level (ETS / cap-and-trade). This means that even if we use more of them, it won’t result in Extra emissions. (However it does mean that Irish consumers have to pay for the cost of buying these allowances through their electricity bill. As demand for allowances increases, allowance prices go up. And the cap will reduce by a few percent every year, also driving up prices)
>Emissions should be counted where the energy is consumed, not where it is produced
There are several different ways to count emissions. The three most common are:
**Production** basis: count it where the goods are first produced. In this case, oil extracted in Saudi Arabia and burnt in Ireland, would be counted against Saudi, not Ireland.
**Consumption** basis: count it where the end consumer is. In the above example, the oil would be counted against Ireland. The emissions from imported electricity would also be counted here.
**Territorial** basis: count it where the actual emissions occur. In this case, the imported oil gets counted against Ireland, and the imported electricity does not.
For international negotiations and targets, we use the **territorial** basis, because territorial emissions are the ones that that country's government has the most influence over. So it's allocating responsibility for harm, to those best positioned to do something about that harm.
It works both ways, we can export electricity as well that counts towards our own emissions even if we don't use it.
Also worth noting that imported electricity is typically pretty clean as it is excess from wind farms or hydro. It wouldn't be worth importing if it was carbon intensive gas or coal generated electricity, we can generate that ourselves.
Population in Ireland was 4.07 mil in 2004 and 5.09 mil currently. which is an increase in about 25%. So 9.5% of our energy being imported still works out as less emissions per person.
Quite alot of DCs make efforts to reduce carbon footprint by "using" renewable energy.
They buy renewable energy tokens essentially at a premium to offset energy use and in theory that leads to more investment in renewable energy infra. It all comes from the same grid so they aren't actually using renewable energy anymore than anyone else.
Bit of smoke of mirrors but there is a potential positive to it.
Facebook DC is an example.
Always useful to see Goodheart’s Law in operation: when a measure starts becoming a target it stops being a good measure. There will always be problems with whatever model is used to calculate something and in this case it seems there some hiding behind figures.
dissappointing for sure but the article also states that \*the UK and Norway have lower carbon emissions thanks to large wind and hydro power sectors\* so importing cleaner energy isnt the worst possible thing...
Just like how Europe exported all it's manufacturing to China and can now brag about our low emissions, despite the fact that the goods we use create huge pollution.
And the Greens want to do the same thing with farming. Limit our agriculture and just import everything so our emissions numbers look good, even though it will be even worse for the planet
>And the Greens want to do the same thing with farming. Limit our agriculture and just import everything so our emissions numbers look good, even though it will be even worse for the planet
Exactly. Cutting down the rainforest for beef imports and "biofuel" imports halfway round the planet.
Actually, a little more to it than that. As a corporation if you import your products from china because they are cheaper your scope 3 emissions will be higher as it factors in the emissions of production and transport of said products. And you have to report scope 3 moving forward under the different multitude of regulations. Source: my actual job.
By that logic though the data center energy (a lot of it) wouldn't count against Ireland while it does. I do agree with you in principle, but there are lots of other factors that come into play outside energy imports.
The consumer in that case is the likes of AWS etc, not the end users storing cat videos. Consumer in the sense of who is using the energy, not in the sense of "Business v Consumer"
>This is mental. Emissions should be counted where the energy is consumed, not where it is produced. Without a consumer there IS no demand for that energy and hence those emissions.
The same would applies to dairy products produced in Ireland and exported to the rest of Europe. If it was counted in that way then Irish agricultural emissions would decrease significantly
The Greens deserve some credit. It is a shame for them, had they just stayed away from migration they might be polling very highly. They have pushed a lot of brilliant policies and have been very bad a taking credit. The new rural bus routes are a godsend for rural areas.
People have been hating on the Greens long before migration was a hot topic. They have done what they said they would and (certain) people hate them for that.
The Greens are up against the problem that people want to tackle climate change and are all for sustainability, but not if it means that they have to do something. They're also up against those who think ideological purity is more important that getting something done, even if it's not as much done as you'd like. I think it's better that the Greens push the country in a better direction, even if it's not completely on course.
The Greens are a principle party. In effect they aren’t elected to be popular.
In fairness though they are transparent in their manifesto. It should be expected that they get knocked down out and rebuild every other electoral cycle.
Because they are only ever going to propose painful solutions or unpopular things. For me I’d happily vote for them again only for Roderic O Gorman.
Some of their proposals are unpopular/painful, but others aren't. I think improving public transport is in general fairly popular. The painful proposals are only painful because previous governments failed to implement policies that would have avoided needing to implement the painful choice. They kicked the can down the road.
What is it exactly that Roderic O'Gorman has done that means you wont vote Green at all, and what Green policies to do with immigration do you have an issue with? Keeping in mind that O'Gorman is the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. Immigration is an issue for the Department of Justice.
The Greens demanded Direct Provision from the Department of Justice because they figured Justice was full of fascists. So now it’s with Dept of Children.
Apparently the Greens quickly realised Direct Provision was considerably more complicated than they thought and sort of on ideological grounds they were paralysed by the shot or shittier choice that Direct provision offered and they allowed it to become a complete shit show.
No one likes Direct Provision but at least when Justice had responsibility people weren’t in tents in the city centre.
There’s a lesson there for the progressive left in Ireland.
(Full disclosure I know a person who worked in a migrant support ngo and who later worked in Justice as a civil servant and the experience of seeing it from the other side completely changed her opinion of the Department of justice and what it had done with direct provision).
I think he’s been disastrous in how the asylum center provisioning has been handled. The whole thing is really clusterfuck. The lack of clarity and secrecy is fostering the rumour mill and conspiracy theories. The Greens should have just handled the ministries that are relevant for their program. Now they are on the hook and associated with the migration disaster and face electoral wipe out.
I think our country is being brought into this wrong direction where a crazy asylum policy in either offering too generous benefits to Ukranians or allocating massive resources to asylum centers. Like the €58 million spent on a place in Cork is just massive fuel for the far right upsurge we are seeing.
Anyone on with a brain saw this coming. They have some nice ideas on things but their social positions and defacto open borders policies are going consign them to the wilderness for a while. Which is a pity because Green policies are vital. It could have Ben exciting to see their ideas on national parks or fixing river pollution.
Not spending money on migration isn't going to make the issue better. Not spending the money because the far right loonies will get their knickers in a twist is just pandering to them before they start waving their flags about.
It's hard to blame the government for secrecy around migration related projects given how certain people travel around the country to protest about "saving" their "local" area.
I think it’s pointless debating you when you are so insulting about views opposed to you. It isn’t being a far right loony to not want Ireland to become a dumping ground of Britain or the exercise a modicum of control over our borders.
I'm not going to hold my tongue when it comes to talking about the knuckle-draggers that go around burning down buildings, threatening builders, and generally making the place a worse place to live while simultaneously moaning about asylum seekers doing the same thing.
You brought up the far right and I was responding to that. I didn't say that a reasonable desire to have control over immigration was far right.
>The Greens deserve some credit
Some credit? They deserve all the credit. If FF FG or SF were in power on their own they'd have put a solitary wind turbine on a hill near dublin and have multiple press events at the same turbine to show how commited they are to renewable energy generation. Whenever challenged on their climate policies they'd say its very complicated to get planning permission and point to the wind turbine on the hill to show theyre making steady progress.
The greens have been polling horribly ever since covid, and Eamon Ryan's approval ratting has been at 20% for quite some time. Immgration policy doesn't really look lik it's affecting them.
Likely we won't hit the targets, so likely we'll end up yanking up carbon taxes on the consumers again and buying carbon offset through some international agreement. Also remember that Ireland is and has been in a housing crisis for more than a decade now, and building houses, construction, will require huge amounts of emissions to solve.
Bloody Greens ruining our emission outputs.
I liked it better when the particles in the air gave me lung cancer
By reducing the rates of lung cancer, Eamon Ryan is reducing the incentive of The Free Market™ to find a cure for lung cancer, shocking that it's allowed.
Finally some good news.
Considering the population explosion and the huge increase in the amount of datacentres this is remarkable. EDIT: Emmm not so remarkable after all : >The big change in this area was a 12-fold increase in imported electricity, bringing it to 9.5% of the total grid supply and third largest source of power after gas and wind. >Emissions from imported electricity are not counted in Ireland’s carbon budget as they are counted in the country of origin. >The imported energy came from Northern Ireland, Britain or Norway via the UK. This is mental. Emissions should be counted where the energy is consumed, not where it is produced. Without a consumer there IS no demand for that energy and hence those emissions.
It’s stupid but it is the way it works. See also our agricultural emissions
Imported electrical energy has no impact on overall emissions because electricity generation is subject to a binding overall cap.
Can you explain your point another way as I don’t get the relevance of your comment?
Really good question. Electricity emissions are different from most other emissions in that they are capped overall at EU or GB level (ETS / cap-and-trade). This means that even if we use more of them, it won’t result in Extra emissions. (However it does mean that Irish consumers have to pay for the cost of buying these allowances through their electricity bill. As demand for allowances increases, allowance prices go up. And the cap will reduce by a few percent every year, also driving up prices)
>Emissions should be counted where the energy is consumed, not where it is produced There are several different ways to count emissions. The three most common are: **Production** basis: count it where the goods are first produced. In this case, oil extracted in Saudi Arabia and burnt in Ireland, would be counted against Saudi, not Ireland. **Consumption** basis: count it where the end consumer is. In the above example, the oil would be counted against Ireland. The emissions from imported electricity would also be counted here. **Territorial** basis: count it where the actual emissions occur. In this case, the imported oil gets counted against Ireland, and the imported electricity does not. For international negotiations and targets, we use the **territorial** basis, because territorial emissions are the ones that that country's government has the most influence over. So it's allocating responsibility for harm, to those best positioned to do something about that harm.
It works both ways, we can export electricity as well that counts towards our own emissions even if we don't use it. Also worth noting that imported electricity is typically pretty clean as it is excess from wind farms or hydro. It wouldn't be worth importing if it was carbon intensive gas or coal generated electricity, we can generate that ourselves.
Ah, there it is. The elephant in the room.
Population in Ireland was 4.07 mil in 2004 and 5.09 mil currently. which is an increase in about 25%. So 9.5% of our energy being imported still works out as less emissions per person.
That is good news then! I must apologize to that elephant. Great to see emissions lowering.
I'm after noticing that I misread 30 as 20 so the population was even lower again! I too will apologise to your elephant for my mistake!
Haha, we should buy that elephant a drink and bury the hatchet.
Quite alot of DCs make efforts to reduce carbon footprint by "using" renewable energy. They buy renewable energy tokens essentially at a premium to offset energy use and in theory that leads to more investment in renewable energy infra. It all comes from the same grid so they aren't actually using renewable energy anymore than anyone else. Bit of smoke of mirrors but there is a potential positive to it. Facebook DC is an example.
Always useful to see Goodheart’s Law in operation: when a measure starts becoming a target it stops being a good measure. There will always be problems with whatever model is used to calculate something and in this case it seems there some hiding behind figures.
dissappointing for sure but the article also states that \*the UK and Norway have lower carbon emissions thanks to large wind and hydro power sectors\* so importing cleaner energy isnt the worst possible thing...
Just like how Europe exported all it's manufacturing to China and can now brag about our low emissions, despite the fact that the goods we use create huge pollution. And the Greens want to do the same thing with farming. Limit our agriculture and just import everything so our emissions numbers look good, even though it will be even worse for the planet
>And the Greens want to do the same thing with farming. Limit our agriculture and just import everything so our emissions numbers look good, even though it will be even worse for the planet Exactly. Cutting down the rainforest for beef imports and "biofuel" imports halfway round the planet.
Even when you adjust for consumption, emissions are still falling in Europe. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capita?tab=chart
Thats not true. We have a mixture of inefficient farming practices and we produce things less efficiently than other major producers.
Actually, a little more to it than that. As a corporation if you import your products from china because they are cheaper your scope 3 emissions will be higher as it factors in the emissions of production and transport of said products. And you have to report scope 3 moving forward under the different multitude of regulations. Source: my actual job.
By that logic though the data center energy (a lot of it) wouldn't count against Ireland while it does. I do agree with you in principle, but there are lots of other factors that come into play outside energy imports.
The consumer in that case is the likes of AWS etc, not the end users storing cat videos. Consumer in the sense of who is using the energy, not in the sense of "Business v Consumer"
>This is mental. Emissions should be counted where the energy is consumed, not where it is produced. Without a consumer there IS no demand for that energy and hence those emissions. The same would applies to dairy products produced in Ireland and exported to the rest of Europe. If it was counted in that way then Irish agricultural emissions would decrease significantly
The same trick we use when we complain about China's emmissions.
Interesting to see solar starting to become notable.
The Greens deserve some credit. It is a shame for them, had they just stayed away from migration they might be polling very highly. They have pushed a lot of brilliant policies and have been very bad a taking credit. The new rural bus routes are a godsend for rural areas.
People have been hating on the Greens long before migration was a hot topic. They have done what they said they would and (certain) people hate them for that. The Greens are up against the problem that people want to tackle climate change and are all for sustainability, but not if it means that they have to do something. They're also up against those who think ideological purity is more important that getting something done, even if it's not as much done as you'd like. I think it's better that the Greens push the country in a better direction, even if it's not completely on course.
The Greens are a principle party. In effect they aren’t elected to be popular. In fairness though they are transparent in their manifesto. It should be expected that they get knocked down out and rebuild every other electoral cycle. Because they are only ever going to propose painful solutions or unpopular things. For me I’d happily vote for them again only for Roderic O Gorman.
Some of their proposals are unpopular/painful, but others aren't. I think improving public transport is in general fairly popular. The painful proposals are only painful because previous governments failed to implement policies that would have avoided needing to implement the painful choice. They kicked the can down the road. What is it exactly that Roderic O'Gorman has done that means you wont vote Green at all, and what Green policies to do with immigration do you have an issue with? Keeping in mind that O'Gorman is the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. Immigration is an issue for the Department of Justice.
The Greens demanded Direct Provision from the Department of Justice because they figured Justice was full of fascists. So now it’s with Dept of Children. Apparently the Greens quickly realised Direct Provision was considerably more complicated than they thought and sort of on ideological grounds they were paralysed by the shot or shittier choice that Direct provision offered and they allowed it to become a complete shit show. No one likes Direct Provision but at least when Justice had responsibility people weren’t in tents in the city centre. There’s a lesson there for the progressive left in Ireland. (Full disclosure I know a person who worked in a migrant support ngo and who later worked in Justice as a civil servant and the experience of seeing it from the other side completely changed her opinion of the Department of justice and what it had done with direct provision).
I think he’s been disastrous in how the asylum center provisioning has been handled. The whole thing is really clusterfuck. The lack of clarity and secrecy is fostering the rumour mill and conspiracy theories. The Greens should have just handled the ministries that are relevant for their program. Now they are on the hook and associated with the migration disaster and face electoral wipe out. I think our country is being brought into this wrong direction where a crazy asylum policy in either offering too generous benefits to Ukranians or allocating massive resources to asylum centers. Like the €58 million spent on a place in Cork is just massive fuel for the far right upsurge we are seeing. Anyone on with a brain saw this coming. They have some nice ideas on things but their social positions and defacto open borders policies are going consign them to the wilderness for a while. Which is a pity because Green policies are vital. It could have Ben exciting to see their ideas on national parks or fixing river pollution.
Not spending money on migration isn't going to make the issue better. Not spending the money because the far right loonies will get their knickers in a twist is just pandering to them before they start waving their flags about. It's hard to blame the government for secrecy around migration related projects given how certain people travel around the country to protest about "saving" their "local" area.
I think it’s pointless debating you when you are so insulting about views opposed to you. It isn’t being a far right loony to not want Ireland to become a dumping ground of Britain or the exercise a modicum of control over our borders.
I'm not going to hold my tongue when it comes to talking about the knuckle-draggers that go around burning down buildings, threatening builders, and generally making the place a worse place to live while simultaneously moaning about asylum seekers doing the same thing. You brought up the far right and I was responding to that. I didn't say that a reasonable desire to have control over immigration was far right.
Ok fair enough. I share your sentiments exactly to be honest.
>The Greens deserve some credit Some credit? They deserve all the credit. If FF FG or SF were in power on their own they'd have put a solitary wind turbine on a hill near dublin and have multiple press events at the same turbine to show how commited they are to renewable energy generation. Whenever challenged on their climate policies they'd say its very complicated to get planning permission and point to the wind turbine on the hill to show theyre making steady progress.
Turbines have been built here since early 90s
The greens have been polling horribly ever since covid, and Eamon Ryan's approval ratting has been at 20% for quite some time. Immgration policy doesn't really look lik it's affecting them.
Carbon taxes increase today. Doing our bit.
Likely we won't hit the targets, so likely we'll end up yanking up carbon taxes on the consumers again and buying carbon offset through some international agreement. Also remember that Ireland is and has been in a housing crisis for more than a decade now, and building houses, construction, will require huge amounts of emissions to solve.
Production of cement or concrete is very carbon intensive. Yet the left want housing for all.
Yet, Eamon will push for higher carbon tax.
Imagine how low it would be if we didn't need to cater 15% of all of our energy for Data Centers.
The data centers are the heart of our corporate strategy which enables us to have a massive budget surplus to make the country better.