Ireland's National Climate Change Strategy will see the Government obliged to spend hundreds of millions of euros to buy carbon credits to meet 20 per cent of its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.
Eighty per cent of the greenhouse gas reductions needed to comply with the UN-agreed targets will come from domestic measures, it was also revealed.
Unveiling the National Climate Change Strategy today, Minister for the Environment Dick Roche announced details of the Government's "holistic" plan to meet the Kyoto target to limit the growth in Ireland's greenhouse gas emissions to 13% above the 1990 levels by 2012.
He said buying emissions credits, which is costing €270 million this year, "must be part of the solution, but not the entire solution".
Minister Roche said the policy included the increased use of sustainable energy in Ireland, producing energy crops, expanding afforestation, improving waste management systems and using waste as an energy source.
The Minister also outlined plans to reduce energy consumption by the public sector by 33 per cent by 2020 and said incandescent light bulbs would be phased out over the next few years via the implementation of an environmental levy on low-efficiency bulbs.
He also announced a €15million awareness campaign, over the next five years, to highlight how the public can make necessary changes to the way we use energy at home.
Dismissing recent suggestions in the media that human activity is only a miniscule contributory factor to the issue of climate change, Minister Roche said the idea did not have much scientific basis, but insisted that should he be proved wrong, "there are some things that are wise to do anyway".
"It makes so much sense to use renewable resources," he said.
The policy outlines targets of 15 per cent of electricity to be generated from renewable sources by 2010 and 33 per cent by 2020, while biomass is expected to contribute up to 30 per cent of energy input at peat stations by 2015.
CIE, meanwhile, will be required to move to a biodiesel blend to fuel the country's trains.
Mr Roche said the strategy looks beyond the Kyoto Protocol period in light of the recent agreement of EU leaders to reduce emissions to at least 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.
Ireland presently emits nearly seven million tonnes more carbon dioxide than it should under internationally agreed Kyoto Protocol targets.