Newton's Optic:Will the Government's radical climate change policy really make our weather better, asks Newton Emerson.
Ireland can meet most of its climate change commitments by recycling old policies, Environment Minister Ferrer O'Rocher has claimed.
Speaking at an ambassador's reception, Mr O'Rocher conceded that the State has missed its current targets but laid the blame for this squarely on "Fianna Fáil's economic miracle and northerners sneaking over the Border to steal our petrol."
Promising to make climate change "central to Government policy across all sectors", the Minister unveiled a 2007 National Climate Change Strategy which is exactly as central as the 2000 National Climate Change Strategy.
Departmental sources say that 6,000 trees were cut down to print the policy document, so 6,000 trees can be saved over the next seven years by simply stamping a new date on the old document in 2014.
"My goodness," one guest told Mr O'Rocher. "With these brilliant ideas you are really spoiling us."
Central strategic proposals include a gradual move towards clean coal by storing fuel for Moneypoint power station at maternity hospitals, where pregnant women will feel a strange urge to lick it.
Alternatively, coal could be cleaned using the large quantity of surplus water which has recently become available in Galway. However, the Minister said this was contingent on local councillors agreeing to drink the water afterwards.
Other central policies involve taxing high-energy light bulbs, not subsidising low-energy light bulbs, taxing imported flower bulbs, not fertilising domestic vegetable bulbs and many other clever ideas involving bulbs. Yesterday, makers of conventional light bulbs were said to be incandescent.
Greenhouse gases and energy inefficient homes will be addressed by allowing anyone with a greenhouse to demolish it and build apartments. Householders will be offered shredded copies of the previous National Climate Change Strategy to insulate their lofts - experts particularly recommend the draft version.
A new target has also been set to produce 15 per cent of all electricity from renewable sources by 2010. This is a radical improvement on the previous target to produce 15 per cent of all electricity from renewable sources by 2010, as it must now be achieved in one quarter of the time.
"If you think about it, this represents a quadrupling of our commitment to the environment," the Minister said. "Frankly, only a Galway councillor could see it differently."
The key central policy in the central strategic policy is the use of carbon offset credits. From 2012, anyone flying to New York for a shopping trip must pay a farmer in Guyana to plant a tree. Once 6,000 trees have been planted, Guyana will publish its own National Climate Change Strategy and so on until everyone on earth is standing at the check-out in Macy's and the rest of the planet is covered in a carbon-absorbing forest. Economists agree that nothing about this plan can possible go wrong.
However, doubts still remain over the Government's approach to transportation. Vehicle emissions are up 160 per cent since 2005, aviation traffic is growing by 7 per cent a year, 80 per cent of the transport budget is spent on roads, Dublin's commuter belt has expanded to a radius of 100km and buses and trains are now exclusively reserved for old people making unnecessary visits to their grandchildren.
"How dare you bring up that issue," Mr O'Rocher told our reporter. "Fianna Fáil is the national movement."