Professor Peadar Kirby:

That is where we are going now. We are not going to meet our Kyoto targets by 2020 and we will have to buy credits to be able to meet them. We are failing on that score. Deputy Stanley asked me for three big things. The first big thing, and I am asking for it here, is that responsibility for climate change be given to the Taoiseach. That is essential because it signals that this is central to Government policy. That will have to happen internationally with whatever is the successor treaty to Kyoto. There would have to be a unit established for poverty proofing or equality proofing policies. We have to climate change proof policies. As Deputy Murphy says, there are many contradictions in the incentives that we are setting, and climate change objectives do not seem to be getting the importance they warrant. Those are two things. We need much more leadership from public figures, including ourselves as academics. We need to talk much more about this. The media has been a great failure in this regard too. We need leadership at all levels in society to educate our population. I was shocked that I did not see any mention in the Irish media of President Obama's climate change talk in Georgetown University on Tuesday of last week, despite it being probably the single most important speech by a political leader anywhere in the world on the issue. It is really is worth watching. We need to wise up our media and all our sectoral organisations, such as the employers' and farmers' organisations. They might not like some of this stuff but this is what is coming down the road and the future of our children and our children's children depends on the actions we take now. It is that serious. Let us develop a co-operative spirit. In wartime we have the capacity to develop a co-operative spirit to get through a period where our survival is at stake, and that is akin to what we are facing into. Government needs to put itself on that sort of footing.