Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

They are targets; that is why they were agreed. While the European Council agreed proposed targets for the post-2012 period, the Council also recognised the importance of engaging other major emitters outside the EU in the negotiation process and that this would require a degree of flexibility on the solutions proposed.

If negotiations on targets proceed in a similar fashion to those on Kyoto, the EU targets will be apportioned between member states as part of a burden sharing agreement. The Kyoto burden sharing agreement took into account a number of factors, including the state of the economy during the base period, projected economic growth and available projections for future greenhouse gas emissions. The targets for each member state therefore reflect their particular national circumstances and Ireland's specific target will then have to emerge from a process of negotiation within whatever overall target is set by the EU. It is simply not possible at this stage to anticipate what that will be.

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