Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Deputy McLoughlin has posed a good question. Little account has been taken of the significant achievement made in Durban in 2011, at which conference everybody agreed to signing up to a legally binding global agreement by 2015, including, as mentioned by the Deputy, the United States, Russia and China. The fact that they are still on board following the Doha conference and that there is a work programme setting out how the targets set will be achieved over the next two or three years is significant. There were a number of conferences in Bonn in May, at which the process of how the particular milestones, on which the European Union is leading, were to be achieved.

There will probably be a Heads of State and Governments meeting in September 2014, as proposed at the Doha conference by Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon. It is hoped that the setting of a date for that conference will concentrate the minds of all member states in terms of the ambitious proposals they will put forward with a view to getting an agreement by end 2015. We are conscious of the need to get all countries on board. It is hoped the programme of work put in place at Doha will accelerate and concentrate the minds of people in the countries mentioned. Members will be aware of the huge shift in the public mood in the United States following hurricane Sandy, particularly on the east coast. There is now a realisation that climate change is no longer an aspiration but necessary. The President of the United States will, I am sure, take cognisance of this in his second term of office.