Ireland will meet its Kyoto Protocol target for curbing the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for causing climate change, according to the Minister for the Environment, Mr Roche.
In a statement to mark the protocol's entry into force yesterday, he described climate change as "the most significant environmental challenge facing our planet" and said the Government remained resolute in dealing with this issue.
The protocol commits the world's developed countries to reduce their emissions by 5.2 per cent overall (based on 1990 levels) by 2012 at the latest. The US, which is the world's biggest emitter, pulled out of this commitment in 2001.
Under the terms of an EU "burden-sharing" agreement, Ireland's target is to limit greenhouse gas emissions to 13 per cent above 1990 levels in the period 2008-12. Emissions were 25 per cent higher in 2003, down from 31 per cent in 2001.
"These figures indicate that we are moving in the right direction, and my objective is to ensure that we maintain this positive trend", Mr Roche said.
"I am not negatively focused on avoiding penalties. I am positively focused on honouring our commitment".
But Friends of the Earth described the Government's plans to "buy its way out" of this commitment by purchasing carbon credits as "a cop-out". Given that Kyoto was merely a first step in tackling climate change, we were "in danger of falling at the first hurdle," a spokesman said.
He was speaking at one of a number of events held yesterday to celebrate the Kyoto Protocol's belated coming of age, more than seven years after it was adopted in Japan's old imperial capital on December 11th, 1997.
Mr Pat Finnegan, co-ordinator of GRIAN, hailed "Kyoto Day" as marking "the beginning of the end for fossil fuels and the opening of a long-awaited new century dedicated to de-carbonisation and renewable energy", such as wind and solar power.
Locally generated, locally supplied and locally consumed, he said this would avoid recourse to "hugely expensive, massively polluting petrol refineries, oil fields, tankers, pipelines and distribution networks. . . that are inseparable from fossil fuel dependency".
Kyoto's coming into force was also welcomed by Mr David Taylor, chief executive of Sustainable Energy Ireland, a statutory agency, as a "great achievement for environmental policy, the European Union's leadership and for the people of Ireland".
Saying there was a "compelling case" for priority investment in renewables and energy efficiency to ensure that Ireland met its Kyoto target, with everyone having a role to play, he added: "The business as usual approach is no longer an option".
IBEC, the employers' organisation, insisted that industry had responded to the challenge, reducing its emissions by 3.82 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) over the past two years. This showed it had "de-coupled" industrial growth and energy consumption.
Calling for the debate on climate change to be informed by "reality and fact ... not rhetoric and fiction", IBEC said the cost of buying carbon credits in 2008-12 could be as low as €42 million a year. "Simplistic calls for a carbon tax will deliver little," it maintained.
But the Green Party said the Government had put the interests of "fuel-heavy big business" before ordinary consumers in deciding last September not to proceed with plans to introduce carbon taxes. The party's leader, Mr Trevor Sargent, called on the Government to take action to cut carbon dioxide emissions by improving energy efficiency in homes, promoting renewable energy and reducing car dependency by investing in public transport. "The potentially catastrophic effects of unfolding climate change cannot be underestimated," he told a gathering on Dublin's Grafton Street.