By Dan Buckley

Ireland’s total greenhouse gas emissions increased by 3.6% to 61.5m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent from 2015 to 2016.

According to figures released by the Central Statistics Office, the industry sector accounted for the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions for the third year in a row, at 34.4% of the total.

This follows a UN warning on Wednesday from the United Nations that Ireland is failing to take effective measures to tackle climate change.

This failure is a breach of human rights, said a UN special rapporteur.

In a legal submission in support of a High Court challenge to the State’s plan to tackle climate change, the special rapporteur, David Boyd, said:

“Ireland must reduce emissions as rapidly as possible, applying the maximum available resources.”

The intervention was published on the same day as Minister of State for Natural Resources Seán Canney , minister of state for natural resources, reassured the Irish oil and gas sector that further exploration of offshore energy supplies is part of the Government’s climate change mitigation plan.

Friends of the Irish Environment is seeking a judicial review of a Government decision to approve the National Mitigation Plan, which outlines a series of actions needed to reduce emissions.

In a statement in support of the FIE case, which is due to be heard on January 22, Prof Boyd said the Government “has clear, positive, and enforceable obligations to protect against the infringement of human rights by climate change.”

The CSO report, meanwhile, shows that the share of emissions from agriculture, forestry, and fishing in 2016 was 32.5%. Emissions from households made up 21.9% of the total, and the services sector produced 11.1% of total greenhouse gas emissions.

Emissions from agriculture, forestry, and fishing fell from 19.3m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2007 to 18.2m tonnes in 2011. Over the ten-year period from 2007 to 2016, emissions from this sector were lowest in 2011 and at their highest in 2016 at 20m tonnes.

Emissions from the industry sector were 25.7m tonnes in 2007, before falling to 21.1m tonnes by 2009.

In 2013, emissions from the industry sector reached their lowest point in the ten-year period, 2007 to 2016, at 18.8m tonnes.

However, there was a steady increase in emissions from 2014 to 2016, and greenhouse gas emissions from industry were at 21.2m tonnes in 2016.

The energy supply sector accounted for 57% of industry emissions in 2016.

Emissions from the services sector fell year-on-year from 2007 to 2013 but then increased each year from 2014 to 2016.

Emissions from this sector were at their highest in 2007 at 8.2m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, and were lowest in 2013 at 6.1m tonnes.

In 2016, greenhouse gas emissions from the services sector were 6.9m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.

A similar pattern was observed for household emissions which fell from 15.4m tonnes in 2008 to 12.7m tonnes in 2014, but rose in both 2015 and 2016 to reach 13.5m tonnes.