Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday, I spoke to a civil servant with responsibility for implementing policy in this area. The Paris Accord - which I presume Europe is going to sign, or else we are just pirates - involves changing our entire energy, transport, food and built environment systems over two, three or four decades. It is change of a scale that dwarfs the changes made from the 1960s up to now in terms of the move to a sustainable economy. The view of the civil servant is that this will require great change. Changes to tax measures change stuff on the margin and not the entire system. I know from experience that political favour for introducing new taxes is not that easy. The political odds of our being able to put in place a carbon tax to achieve the extent of change within the required timeframe is zero. Are we doing enough?