THE NEW Climate Change Response Bill, when enacted, would provide a framework for developing a new strategy to achieve “difficult” EU targets, according to Dr Mary Kelly, director general of the Environmental Protection Agency.
She said the EU’s target of cutting emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 “is particularly difficult for Ireland to achieve” as it applied to agriculture, transport, residential and other sectors where it was much more difficult to achieve reductions. Limiting and adapting to climate change remain priorities for the agency.
“The transition to a genuinely low carbon and resource-efficient economy has substantial benefits, not only for the environment, but also for the health and wellbeing of society.
“We need radical changes in practice in all economic sectors particularly energy, transport and agriculture, and in our own lives,” she said in an end-of-year statement for 2010, in which Ireland’s environment is described as “high quality”.
But the recent water shortage had shown “how fragile our infrastructure can be” and Dr Kelly underlined the need for continued investment in sewage treatment and waste management, “so that the basic building blocks for a clean and well-protected environment are in place”.
“Significant ongoing investment will be required to resolve waste, water and air issues and much work remains to be done in the areas of transport, energy and agriculture to ensure that economic growth, when it returns, is sustainable,” she said.
