The Central Bank of Ireland has today (Thursday, January 12) published a Financial Stability Note, which reveals that large rural properties and low-income households are more vulnerable to climate-related energy price rises.
The report – An Estimate of Climate-Related Transition Risk in Irish Mortgage Lending – was authored by Tamanna Adhikari, James Carroll, and Derek Lambert.
It examines the impact of energy price increases due to possible increases in carbon taxation to 2050.
Large rural properties
The authors calculate new estimates of energy and emissions for mortgaged households with a view to identifying those most at risk.
They find that energy consumption and emissions are positively correlated with income, property size, the number of occupants and location (rural areas).
Emissions among higher-income groups are over double those of lower-income groups. Furthermore, energy usage is 40% higher in rural areas, largely due to bigger properties and higher transport expenditure.
The Central Bank Note further finds that bank exposure to energy-intensive households is likely to be sizeable – close to 60% of mortgaged households are currently in “high” or “very high” energy/emissions categories.
In the long run (to 2050), however, household resilience will depend on two factors – income growth and the speed of household energy/emission mitigation, e.g., through increasing energy efficiency levels and switching to low-emission fuels.
The authors note that lower-income households are less likely to be in a position to invest in such technologies.
According to the Central Bank, in a best-case scenario of 2% income growth and high energy/emissions mitigation, the average household energy-to-income ratio in 2050 would not increase, emphasising the link between national decarbonisation targets and overall financial stability.
From a policy perspective, the Note suggests that targeted transition supports for those households most at risk would help to reduce wider risks to economic and financial stability.
Energy and emissions
An Estimate of Climate-Related Transition Risk in Irish Mortgage Lending proposes a new methodology to populate loan-level data with borrower energy and emissions estimates.
The Note uses loan-level data from the Central Bank of Ireland’s New Mortgage Lending series. This collects information on all new mortgages within each six-month period.
For the purposes of this Note, the research sample includes 218,311 loans from eight lenders, representing €50.6 billion of new lending between 2015 and 2021.
Data on energy usage is estimated using the Central Statistics Office (CSO) Household Budget Survey 2015/2016 (the last year for which data is available).
Energy usage estimates are then used to estimate carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions based on conversion factors sourced from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI).