2007 will be remembered as the year of the environment, when concerns about global warming crystallised with the publication by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of its Fourth Assessment, declaring the evidence for a rapidly warming world as "unequivocal". The year also witnessed extreme weather events, of the type that climatologists had been warning would happen more frequently, such as the prolonged drought in Australia, forest fires raging on the parched earth of Greece, severe summer flooding in England and the devastating cyclone that hit Bangladesh in November.
Global warming, and what needs to be done to avert the worst of it, also moved close to the top of the international political agenda with a United Nations summit in New York in September and the 13th UN Climate Change Conference in Bali last month, where the US delegation was shamed into agreeing to the demands of developing countries that the world's most developed countries must assume the primary responsibility for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Although this was disowned within hours by the White House, it is clear that there is a growing worldwide consensus that the daunting challenge of climate change must be tackled soon.
The obligations of developed countries under the Kyoto Protocol - to reduce emissions by 5 per cent overall below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012 - are in force as of January 1st. This represents a modest, though significant, first step on what will be a difficult road towards achieving a low-carbon economy. And while Minister for the Environment John Gormley has said that Ireland would meet its Kyoto commitments, the acid test for the future will come soon with tough negotiations over how the effort is to be shared among EU member states in achieving the ambitious objective of cutting emissions by 20 per cent for the EU as a whole by 2020.
Despite the Green Party's participation in government and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern's recent recognition of the urgent need to tackle global warming, Ireland is in a weak enough position. Our emissions are nearly double the limit we agreed in 1998 under the EU's Kyoto "burden-sharing" deal, mainly as a result of spectacular levels of economic growth over the past decade. And though this growth is more modest now, the Celtic Tiger has left a dubious environmental legacy - notably car-dependent suburban sprawl - which will make it even more difficult for Ireland to play its part in confronting climate change.
In this context, with at least 300,000 new homes built in the wrong places, the planning guidelines being drafted by Mr Gormley's department to curtail sprawl will only close the proverbial stable door after the horse has bolted. Regulations prescribing more efficient use of energy, in homes and other buildings, will help to reduce waste over time, as will a more determined drive to make more use of renewable sources as well as investing more in public transport projects that make sense and rather less in the motorways that serve as the sinews of sprawl.