Mr. Oisín Coghlan:

I will try to keep it brief because we need to look at where we go next. To be fair, it is a difficult problem in a number of respects. The gas is invisible. Until recently, we thought the effects would be remote from Ireland, either geographically or in time. It cuts across all sectors. It is not like the Montreal Protocol, which sought to solve the problem of ozone holes and involved one specific technology being replaced by another. In that case, a company in the United States was going to make money as a result and, therefore, the US was on board and the protocol was implemented. It takes a while for the effects to become evident. The Kyoto Protocol was modelled on the Montreal Protocol but this is a far more wicked problem and involves all sectors. We are all involved in the pollution in this instance.

Although the long term is getting shorter, this seemed like a long-term challenge at the time of the signing of the Kyoto Protocol. As we know, politicians, operate in, at most, five-year electoral cycles and 24-hour news cycles so it is challenging to address what are seen as long-term issues. In addition, the actions required to reduce emissions benefit everybody in a relatively dispersed way such that most people do not notice those benefits, which may be the absence of something happening or, if direct, are unknown. However, the impact of actions to reduce emissions directly impact on well-organised, very vocal vested interests. I do not use the term "vested interests" in a prejudicial manner but, rather, to refer to those who have money at stake and who are plugged into policy-making. Politicians are facing a decision matrix with a large swathe of silent beneficiaries and a smaller concentrated swathe of active opposers of action and that has been the downfall of many proposals over the past 20 years. To give a brief example, 14 years ago Charlie McCreevy ran a consultation on whether to have a carbon tax.

The question was "Would you like a carbon tax?" Oddly enough, most of the people who answered that question said "No thank you very much." For a start, it was the wrong question to ask. At the time, the calculations were showing that Ireland would be facing multimillion euro bills if it did not meet its targets under the Kyoto Protocol. The question should have been posed as a choice: Ireland faces this challenge so we can either have a carbon tax and reduce the amount of fines we are to pay on the polluter pays basis, which is the more one pollutes, the more one pays, or we can have higher fines and the money to pay the fines would be taken from PAYE. This was the actual question, but it was not asked.

Much of it comes down to the framing of the debate with the public. It also comes down to trying to engage in a balanced way not only with those who are fearful of the short-term challenges of change but also with the vast majority people who are busy with their lives in terms of every aspect of childcare, healthcare and caring for elderly parents and who are not focused on the threat that appears to be in the distance. The threat is now hoving more into view and we need to engage those people and have a balanced discussion on the transition we need to make.