TRANSITIONING TO A LOW-CARBON IRISH ECONOMY: AN ANALYSIS OF REGIONAL LABOUR IMPACTS. RESEARCH SERIES NUMBER 100 December 2019

Ireland has legally binding emissions reduction targets for 2020 and 2030. To achieve these targets and to become a low-carbon economy, the government uses carbon taxation as one of the primary policy tools. In addition, ceasing of peat and coal, which are the most polluting energy commodities from electricity production, is planned. However, given the concentration of specific production sectors in specific regions, there is a concern that the labour impacts for certain regions/counties will be high, compared to others. This report explores the projected county-level variation in labour demand impacts for 2030, following an increase in the carbon tax and removal of coal and peat in electricity production. More specifically, the electricity production sector will gradually phase out coal and peat from the production process, their usages will be terminated in 2026 and 2029, respectively, and the carbon tax will increase C6 annually starting from 2020 and reach C80 in 2029 per tonne CO2-eq. We combine the labour demand output from the Ireland Environment, Energy and Economy (I3E) computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, with regional employment statistics to highlight sectoral and county-level variation. Firstly, we assess the sectoral labour demand impacts, and these sectoral results are then “shared out” to evaluate labour demand impacts for each county