Professor Mark Ferguson:

I am delighted to hear the question on blue sky thinking. I will be brief. The committee's discussions, appropriately, are focused around mitigation, reducing emissions, trying to insulate and do things better and that is terrific but there is new science coming on stream around how to actively cut emissions without necessarily cutting activity. I will send the committee the report of the Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering entitled, Greenhouse Gas Removal, from which I will comment on two or three issues relevant to Ireland.

I have spoken a little about the rehydration of peatlands and carbon capture. I ask that the committee not necessarily demonise oil and gas because we are getting close to low carbon gas. There is a lot of gas extraction going on offshore in Mayo and Cork. Once gas has been extracted from a particular area one then concentrates on pumping back down carbon dioxide. These fossil fuels will be required in any transition to a low carbon economy. The trick is to lower the carbon footprint of the gas extraction. There is a big business opportunity in terms of reusing the vast amount of empty space available once the gas has been taken out.

I would like now to focus on an issue I have not spoken about before, particularly for the benefit of members from rural Ireland. Five per cent of the world's global emissions are from concrete manufacture. Concrete is used in buildings. When silica is heated it gives off carbon dioxide and this leaves one with a carbonate which makes concrete. There is an alternative way of doing this. Basalt, of which there is a lot in Donegal and in the North of Ireland, can be crushed into a powder and spread over the ground. It then absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This is one way of trapping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. This can be used as a fertiliser but interestingly it can also be used for making concrete. If concrete is made in the way I have just described not only is the carbon footprint reduced, the concrete is stronger and throughout the life of the building it absorbs CO2 . In terms of visionary thinking, grinding up basalt would lead to a whole new industry in rural Ireland. This is a really interesting strategy, which is at research stage and also at the early implementation stage. There is a very exciting and active research pathway but it would be wrong to say that any of those is immediately commercialisable.

Senator Mulherin asked about marine renewable energy, which is definitely an active research area. Currently, it is expensive and inefficient, which is being examined in the research. Wind and so on is much more efficient at the present time but this does not mean that wave energy cannot improve. There are active research groups around the world, including Marine and Renewable Energy Ireland, MaREI, SFI's research centre in Cork. I encourage the committee to visit the centre, where members will see test wave plants and so on. Wave energy has potential for the future. All of these areas for potential for the future.

As a scientist I am optimistic. Climate change is a big problem and a big issue but I remind the committee that no crisis that was ever predicted in human history has come to pass. Many times we have predicted that we were going to run out of food but it has never happened. Why? It is because science innovation has moved faster than the crisis, through either mechanisation of forms, the fertilisation of ground, genetic engineering of crops and so on. I believe the opportunity in climate change will be for the science and innovation to move faster than the problem. This means doing what we do better in terms of mitigation and so on and focusing on new industries. I ask the committee not to lose sight of this and that we have to transition from existing fossil fuels into an new era, part of which is low carbon gas.