Climate issue affects every sector - Ahern

Energy strategy:Every sector of Irish society is to be approached to make changes in energy consumption and lifestyle, under a new communications strategy aimed at meeting the State's climate change targets, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said yesterday.

Launching the Government's communications strategy on climate change with Tánaiste Brian Cowen and Minister for the Environment John Gormley, Mr Ahern said climate change was now a social and economic issue as well as an environmental one.

The new Cabinet subcommittee on climate change would, he said, oversee the national climate change strategy, part of which would involve engaging with all sectors of society to combat greenhouse gas emissions.

Specifically, Mr Gormley said this would involve new regulations and policies in transport, the residential, industrial, commercial and services sectors, as well as agriculture and forestry, waste management and throughout the public sector.

He said the Government planned to set up an "online carbon management tool" which would include a carbon calculator, and a step-by-step guide to carbon management planning, education and awareness materials. Mr Gormley said some businesses would also be offered training support at venues across the State.

The Department of the Environment was also finalising an "action plan on green procurement" that would ensure that "organisations think climate change when procuring new services and products", he said. Campaigns would also be developed for farmers and those involved in forestry.

"There are opportunities for the agri-food industry through the promotions of locally grown and in-season foods to an increasingly climate aware domestic market," he said.

The tourism sector too would be asked to assess its climate impacts, and again Mr Gormley said there were opportunities to "develop products aimed at an increasingly climate-conscious domestic market".

Mr Gormley said he had already improved building regulations, which now proposed a 40 per cent reduction in heat loss. But he said he would be increasing this again to 60 percent, and added that he would like to see zero carbon housing by 2016.

Mr Gormley said that, "in a temperate climate like Ireland", it should be possible to live in homes which were so well constructed and insulated they would not require heating systems at all.

Heat would be provided by the normal working of domestic appliances.

Transport was, he said, one of the biggest producers of carbon emissions, and these had risen dramatically in recent years alongside the growth in car use.

Mr Gormley said a large part of the climate control strategy would concentrate on shifting people towards using public transport or bicycles.

He instanced Copenhagen, in Denmark, as an example of a city where about one-third of the workforce cycled to work, and said similar levels should be attainable here.

The campaign will also include significant efforts aimed at changing the behaviour of individuals, as well as a significant multimedia advertising campaign aimed at raising awareness of climate change, its causes and its implications.

"It will give people the information and tools they need to change their worlds in a climate-positive way," he added.

The awareness campaign is to be rolled out in the new year for an initial two years, with the option of extending it for another three.

Some €15 million for advertising will be included.

Mr Gormley will travel to Indonesia next week to take part in a global conference on climate change where new EU targets to cut emissions to at least 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 will be detailed.

GREEN ISSUES:

Dublin City Council to ban cars

Dublin City Council is planning to ban private cars from an area between College Green and O'Connell Street as part of an effort to reduce carbon emissions and create a better environment in the city centre.

As one of the major stockholders involved in the bid to reduce traffic-generated emissions, the council is to also offer adult cycling lessons and review its cycle lanes to make them more user-friendly.

Speaking at the launch of the Climate Change Communications strategy yesterday, the council's director of traffic, Michael Phillips, said the heavy goods vehicle ban in the city had already made the environment of the city quays much better.

But he said further improvements - most of them involving restrictions on the use of private cars - would be unveiled over the coming months.

High on the list of priorities would be to restrict vehicle access to the College Green/O'Connell Street area to public transport vehicles only. Mr Phillips said construction work on the Luas city centre line may actually work in the city's favour as traffic restrictions will have to be put in place in the area at that time.

Mr Phillips also revealed that the city council was undertaking a review of its cycle lanes, commenting that some of the older lanes shared road space with bus corridors and were "not very user-friendly".

In future cycle lanes would have dedicated road space and a current programme where the council provided cycling lessons for schools would be extended to adults, he added.

20% of Irish flora threatened

More than 170 native Irish species - representing more than 20 per cent of Irish flora - could be threatened with extinction as a result of climate change in Ireland, it was claimed yesterday.

Citing new research published by Dr Peter Wyse Jackson, director of the National Botanic Gardens, Minister for the Environment John Gormley warned that urgent lifestyle changes were required to save some species.

Dr Wyse Jackson, who is also chairman of the Global Partnership for Plant Conservation, is an acknowledged expert on all aspects of conservation and sustainable use of plant resources. His research found that climate change was already having noticeably detrimental effects on habitats and species.

Mr Gormley said the research illustrated the "potentially severe impact of climate change on Ireland".