Voters should inundate the Taoiseach with postcards to demand urgent action on climate change, the Greens said today.
A major UN report warned that 90 per cent of global warming is fuelled by heavy consumer use of electricity and transport.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change also predicted increasingly intense storms, heatwaves and heavy rains in the decades to come.
The Greens launched their postcard campaign by unfurling a 15-foot banner across Dublin's Millennium Bridge. It read: "Climate change: Time to act."
The party, which doubled its national support to 8 per cent in the latest opinion poll, called on the Government to build more public transport and make homes more energy-efficient.
The Coalition must invest in renewable energy systems to reduce fossil fuel and reform the tax system so that the polluter pays, TDs added.
Each postcard read: "Climate change is the greatest challenge facing mankind. I am willing to play my part but I also want your Government to show leadership."
Party leader Trevor Sargent said: "If we fail to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions within the next decade, we risk passing a tipping point where climate change becomes a catastrophic runaway event.
"The time to act is now and we are calling on the Irish public to deliver a political message that our country should lead the response to climate change."
He added: "This Government has proven that it's not up to the task: it doesn't understand the scale of the climate change challenge ahead of us and thinks it can buy its way out of trouble. At every occasion it has taken the easy option - not the right option. And it has shown repeatedly that climate change is not one of its priorities.
"There is now growing public will for political leadership on climate challenge. We need common agreement on the key target of keeping global temperature increases below a two degree rise.
"And it will require developed countries such as Ireland to cut emissions by at least two thirds in our lifetime.