Mr. Joseph Curtin:

A number of countries, including some of the leading European countries, have taken on specific climate change targets. The NESC report highlights some of the options that have been taken internationally, to several of which Mr. D'Arcy made reference. Several countries, including the United Kingdom and Germany, have taken on science-based, legally binding targets, but there are other options. Sweden, for instance, has adopted the objective of being climate neutral by 2050. The NESC has indicated that Ireland is in a very favourable position to achieve that type of target because we have a large agriculture sector, climate neutrality being capable of capturing the potential of agriculture as a sink, as well as a source of emissions. This vision of a climate-neutral Ireland could harness much of the potential inherent in agriculture, including afforestation and so forth. It is broader vision, one to which Ireland might be very suited because it reflects the particular nature of the country and its particular climate change challenge.

In the case of Denmark, to give another example, the extremely ambitious objective of becoming fossil fuel free by 2050 has been adopted. This is a typical Danish approach and really captures something about that country and its relation to climate change, decarbonisation and ongoing transition. The trick for Ireland is to discover a unique offering which we can give to the world in terms of the climate change challenge and to encapsulate that offering in some type of vision. The Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change has a sister organisation in the United Kingdom which is very favourably disposed to the approach in that country of incorporating a legally binding target for 2050. The UK corporate leaders group has a similar membership to ours, with members from across a broad range of organisations. It campaigned very vigorously for a legally binding target for 2050 for precisely the reason the Deputy suggested, namely, to be able to offer its member organisations certainty in terms of investment decisions.