Ireland has a key role to play in advancing the environmental agenda, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Al Gore told a conference in Dublin at the weekend.
Speaking to an audience of 400 Irish and international company executives and investors, the former US vice-president and climate change campaigner said Ireland's growing prosperity brought with it "increased moral and political responsibilities to take a leadership role in tackling climate change".
Ireland, he said, "with its successful business model and unique political positioning, has a key role to play among developed nations in driving the environmental agenda".
All media apart from official photographers were barred from attending Mr Gore's keynote address headlined Thinking Green: Economic Strategy for the 21st Century. He spoke of growing evidence of climate change, at one point referring to the weekend's storm warning in Ireland, and praised the recent election in Australia as the first in which climate change was a defining issue.
Mr Gore told the audience he was greatly encouraged by the importance now being attached to environmental issues by global capital markets. He also welcomed the development of markets to trade renewable energy credits.
The conference at the Royal College of Surgeons was organised by stockbroking and corporate finance company Merrion Landsbanki. Focusing on energy and the environment, the event also included a debate on whether Ireland should consider nuclear power.
Several members of the Green Party attended the Saturday conference, including party leader and Minister for the Environment John Gormley, Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Eamon Ryan and Minister of State for Agriculture Trevor Sargent.
Mr Gormley said Mr Gore's "solutions-based approach" had been an inspiration to policymakers across the globe and he expressed hope that world leaders would agree on emissions reduction at next week's UN conference on climate change.
"From Ireland's perspective, I intend to push for the most ambitious agreement possible to cover the period following the expiration of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012. I hope that Ireland can meet, and even exceed its Kyoto commitments and become an example for the rest of the world over the next decade," he added.
Opening the conference, Mr Ryan said the twin challenges of climate change and a peak in global oil production presented Ireland with a "unique opportunity to lead the global green energy boom".
He told the audience: "There is no reason why a substantial portion of the $85 billion investment in clean energy technology worldwide last year cannot be located in Ireland. Morally, we are obliged to tackle climate change; economically, we can ultimately benefit from this."
Discussing the issue of nuclear power, David Begg, general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions said that nuclear energy should not be "foreclosed" as an option.
ESB chairman Tadhg O'Donoghue, speaking in a personal capacity, said current nuclear technologies would render a nuclear power station on the Irish electricity system "technically unfeasible and commercially very difficult".
Nevertheless, he noted that Ireland's electricity interconnection with the UK means the country is importing electricity from a range of fuel sources, including nuclear.