Ireland `determined' to implement protocol

Ireland is "determined, both domestically and as part of the international community, to act decisively" to implement the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, said yesterday.

Addressing the UN climate change summit, he said the evidence for human-induced global warming was now compelling and the "profound consequences" of climate change were intensifying all the time.

Mr Dempsey said the time had come to agree on critical elements of the Kyoto Protocol, such as greenhouse-gas emissions trading, to enable enough countries to ratify it so that it would enter into force by 2002.

The task facing the summit was to "create the foundations which will allow more challenging emissions reduction targets" to be adopted in the future. Under the protocol, an overall cut of only 5 per cent is required.

Echoing the EU stance at the talks, the Minister made it clear that "domestic action" by individual countries must be the main means of meeting targets under the protocol, rather than resorting to loopholes.

He repeated that "business as usual" was no longer an option nationally or internationally in dealing with climate change and said that Ireland's own strategy, published on November 1st, required action from all economic sectors.

"A robust compliance regime with real consequences for non-compliance should underpin our commitments," he said. But the concerns of developing countries in the Third World also needed to be addressed at The Hague.

Mr Dempsey pointed out that Ireland was committed to substantial increases in its overseas aid programme. This funding would be made as responsive as possible to their real needs, based on the goal of sustainable development.