Professor John Sweeney:

On bringing this to a larger scale, we will not solve the climate problem until it is elevated to the World Trade Organization, WTO, arena. Some years ago, the then President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, suggested border adjustments whereby countries which were not appropriately mitigating the greenhouse gas component of their products would face a tax or tariff at the border. That suggestion may have to be revisited because I do not see how one can have a level playing field if countries are effectively subsidising their exports and distorting the market through pollution which is not counted. There may be a role for Ireland in terms of its involvement in WTO processes. Neither the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement nor the Japan agreement cover this area in any form I would like to see.

On short-lived non-carbon greenhouse gases, mitigating 1 tonne of methane is equivalent to mitigating 32 tonnes of CO2 over the next 100 years. There is a role for looking at short-lived pollutants as a means of getting a quick fix to this problem. Countries that have very high proportions of such emissions, particularly methane emissions, should give serious consideration to whether they should play a more significant role in mitigating those emissions in the short term as a way of addressing some of the more severe problems that may arise in the future.