Professor Alan Barrett:

No, we are not doing enough. I confess that this is not an area about which I know a huge amount. One sometimes attends a committee meeting from which one learns more than one contributes, which was my experience in the early days of this committee. The scale of the challenge is something that people generally are not aware of. I am speaking in that regard of the scale of the challenge related to the measures we sign up to rather than to any notional challenge. There is a rude awakening coming down the line. I share Deputy Ryan's perception of the political difficulties but I do not necessarily share his pessimism about the possible power of significant price signals. The answer perhaps is that they would have to be pretty significant price signals to get the sort of actions that are needed, which probably supports the Deputy's point on political acceptability.