Margot Wallstrom sometimes feels that Europe's environment is poised "between heaven and hell". And as for Ireland's environmental performance, she says we're only average, which is why she is prosecuting the Government for its failures to implement EU directives on water, waste and habitat protection.
She will discuss these issues in Dublin this week with the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey; the Minister for Arts and Heritage, Ms deValera, the Environmental Protection Agency, An Taisce and other environmental groups. She will also address the Forum on Europe, students at UCD and a public meeting.
Though the Commissioner agrees that the EU has its own share of "policy inconsistencies", she believes Ireland could do a lot better - for example, by giving full legal status to Special Areas of Conservation (SACs). "It's not correct [for farmers] to say that their land will be turned into a museum."
Ms Wallstrom is heartened by what she sees as "a lot of news coming from Ireland on environmental improvements", she is also aware that there are more complaints about non-compliance with EU legislation. And what she finds particularly inexplicable is that Irish householders pay no charges for the water they use.
"Water should be a basic right for people, but you can say the same about housing or clothes and you still have to pay for them. You don't give something a value until you put a price on it," she says.
She makes "no distinction" between EU countries in terms of taking compliance cases to the European Court. "The Swedes were very angry when I started infringement proceedings against them for hunting lynx, which is a protected species, and also for failing to submit comprehensive lists of habitats for protection."
Formerly a Swedish government minister, she agrees that her native country has an above-average environmental record. "But I'm reminded now and then that problems look very different in southern Europe. I have to be a bit humble and approach them not with a Nordic view but to try to understand the cultures."
On global warming, she, like many others, thought the recent Marrakesh summit would be a cleaning-up operation after the breakthrough in Bonn last July. But it turned out to be more difficult than that because "the Americans wanted to achieve what they couldn't achieve in Bonn - to stop the whole thing".
Working behind the scenes through the Canadians, they had raised all sorts of objections, even introducing a text that sought greenhouse gas cuts from developing countries at this stage in the process - something that incensed the G7 group, which had been working closely with the EU to save the Kyoto Protocol.
"So we had to put enormous pressure on Japan and, in the end, they gave in," Ms Wallstrom says. "And the Russians chose to simply stand on the sidelines until they got what they wanted, because they knew their support was necessary for ratification" of the climate change treaty adopted in Kyoto in December 1997.
The rules adopted in Marrakesh had "not made it more difficult for the Americans to come back", she maintains. And though the target cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are far from ambitious, she says the real importance of the summit was to put in place an international legal framework to begin tackling climate change.
The Commissioner is emphatic that ratification of Kyoto will not undermine the competitiveness of European industry "because the rest of the world will have to follow". The EU had also shown that it was possible to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a cost-effective way, at less that 20 euros per tonne of carbon dioxide.
"We have been the driving force. Most of the time, we have had to steer the whole debate. We brought the negotiating partners together and had to drag them along. And though the process has been extremely frustrating at times, it's been worth it. I would also say it's a very good example of European leadership."
Climate change "is now an issue that will stay on top of the political agenda for generations, or at least for decades to come", according to Ms Wallstrom. She is also counting on the EU ratifying the Kyoto Protocol in advance of the UN's World Conference on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg next September.
But do ordinary people know what "sustainable development" means? "I think they understand what it's really about, but they don't understand the expression. But with many politicians, it's the other way around unfortunately. They know they have to use the phrase, but they don't have a clue about what to do.
"Ordinary people know exactly what is necessary. I always use the simple definition, that we shouldn't send the bill to our children and grandchildren for the things we are doing."
But she complains that there are few rewards for citizen effort. "I just read a letter to the editor of a Swedish newspaper the other day from a woman who said 'I've had it. After 15 years of being the most loyal citizen, carrying glass to bottle bank, sorting my waste etc, what have I got in return? Nothing. Not even a thank you.' " Ms Wallstrom firmly believes that people deserve to get "some kind of feedback", which is why she makes a point of holding public meetings during her official visits to EU member-states.
Altogether, she presides over 206 EU legal acts on the environment. But instead of seeking to lengthen this formidable list, her focus is on what she calls "the three I's - integration, information and implementation", as well as on enlargement. She is also making official visits to all of the EU's candidate member-states.
She sees her job as "very much like being moved between heaven and hell all the time. Because I can see all the good things taking place, that we can make change in the world. At same time, I also see some of the trends and irrational behaviour of humanity, which makes me feel that it can only go one way and that is down."
Her "heaven" list includes better air and water quality throughout the EU. But she is concerned about the perennial problem of waste - "we used to have a butter mountain, now we have a waste mountain" - and the "cocktail effect" of using so many chemicals, "including some new ones that affect our reproductive capacity."
Problems were becoming more complex because of the patterns of production and consumption. "I've concentrated on children's health because you can see them as being the first victims of pollution and environmental problems, with more asthma and allergies. Indeed, they are affected already in the womb," she says.
The Commissioner will hold a public meeting on Thursday at 5.15 p.m. at the European Commission offices in Molesworth Street, Dublin. Admission is free.