Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

People felt that 2050 was too far away and that action should be taken much earlier. There is not an agreement on when people should achieve them, but EU policy is that they should be achieved and as much progress as possible made within the period of this plan. Then we can have a review to see where we are at and have another planned period set to step it up. It is not meant to try to press it out in a way that would be meaningless, particularly now that Russia seems prepared to join up to the Kyoto protocol, there is involvement with China and there is still pressure on the United States. To stretch it out into the long term looks too much like a pious aspiration. Those who are arguing for that include my Danish colleague and others. However, that is not a meaningful date and that is the reason it was dropped.

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