Environmental Accounts

ESRI Environmental Accounts for the Republic of Ireland, 1990-2006

Environmental accounts provide information on emissions and resource use. Environmental accounts are so-called satellite accounts to the national accounts, which provide a comprehensive framework to present economic data in a coherent, consistent, and internationally comparable manner. Environmental accounts are specifically designed to reveal the pressure the economy puts on the environment.

Environmental accounts are standardised internationally, and thus allow for comparison between countries and over time. The figure below depicts the amount of carbon dioxide emitted (from fossil fuel combustion) per dollar value added between 1990 and 2005 for Ireland, the other "old" Member States of the European Union, the new Member States, and the USA. The figure shows that Ireland's reforms of energy use and carbon emissions have been almost on par with Eastern Europe, and that the decarbonisation of the economy has been much faster in Ireland than in the rest of Western Europe. Therefore, Ireland's high carbon dioxide emissions are explained by the high standard of living, rather than by the "dirtiness" of the Irish economy.

Compared to the CSO Environmental Accounts, the ESRI Environmental Accounts cover more environmental themes, and span a longer period. Moreover, the ESRI Environmental Accounts are pure production accounts, and therefore more easily used in economic models.

The ESRI Environmental Accounts (1990-2005) are documented here. The paper and discussion can be found here. The 1990-2006 accounts follow the same principles and use the same sources. Data for 2006 were added, and some earlier observations were updated. We also added what little data is available for dioxins.

ESRI Regional Environmental Accounts (2006) Size: 2.1M bytes

ESRI Environmental Accounts (1990-2006) Size: 363.5K bytes

ESRI Environmental Accounts (1990-2005) Size: 332.5K bytes

SAFER holds more data on the environment in Ireland.

The ESRI Environmental Accounts were developed with financial support of the EPA's ERTDI Programme (2006-SDM-LS-11).

Earlier ESRI work on environmental accounts:

• Sue Scott (1999)
• John Curtis (2001)
• John Curtis and John Eakins (2003)
• Joe O'Doherty and Richard Tol (2007)

The ESRI Environmental accounts are part of the research programme Environment and Natural Resources, with support from Energy, Macroeconomics, and Transport and Infrastructure.