Ireland must undergo a "green energy revolution", Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said today.
Unveiling a number of environmental measures including Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann's biofuel obligations, Mr Ahern firmly ruled out nuclear power as an answer to Ireland energy needs.
He told a meeting of Fianna Fail's youth wing that the Minister for Transport Martin Cullen would be instructing Bus Eireann and Dublin Bus to run all their vehicles on a 5 per cent biofuel mix. All new vehicles would have to run on a 30 per cent mix, he added.
The Minister for Natural resources Noel Demspey this week announced that all vehicle should have to run on a 5.75 biofuel mix by 2009 and a 10 per cent mix by 2020.
Mr Ahern also said that Mr Demspey was finalising the White Paper on Energy, which would set target deliver one third of electricity consumed from renewable sources by 2020.
Minister for the Environment Dick Roche would published the delayed National Climate Change Strategy before Easter, Mr Ahern added.
Fianna Fail will outline its General Election pledges over the coming weeks but in his first major salvo of the campaign, Mr Ahern blasted critics of the Government's environmental record.
In particular, the plan to purchase carbon credits to make up for Ireland's failure to reach its Kyoto emission targets which, he said was a form of foreign development assistance.
Those who disapprove should tell the UN and "the people of the developing nations who benefit from these schemes", he said.
Initiatives such as new standards in building and agriculture; investment to improve water quality; the levy on plastic bags and high recycling rates showed the Government was taking the environment seriously.
He noted that Ireland was rated as 10 thout of 133 countries for environmental policies at last year's World Economic Forum in Switzerland. This had been achieved against a backdrop of 150 per cent economic growth since 1990, he noted.
"For every unit of GDP, we now produce emissions at 48 per cent of their 1990 levels. This compares well with an EU 15 average of 78 per cent.
"This is a good place to live and to work. Over the past decade, economic success has gone hand in hand with a cleaner and a better environment.
"Protecting our own environment locally and facing up to the challenge of Climate Change globally will be an essential part of Fianna Fáil's plans for the next five years," Mr Ahern told the Ógra Fianna Fail conference in Galway.
He accepted that too much waste was still going into landfill and insisted that waste must be converted into energy if Ireland was to achieved the low landfill rates in the likes of Denmark and Germany.
While not specifically referring to the controversy over incinerators, Mr Ahern said: "We must use that resource [waste] to the maximum effect before discarding it. To pretend we can do otherwise is environmental dishonesty and a recipe for more, and not less, landfill."
On nuclear energy Mr Ahern said the Government's efforts to close the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria were progressing well.
He also answered advocates of nuclear energy who, he said, were cynically exploiting concerns about climate change: "There are better, greener options for Ireland and for the world. Nuclear power is as unsuitable for Ireland as it is unacceptable."
He said re-elected Fianna Fail would build on existing policies including the use of taxation "to encourage good environmental behaviour and discourage poor practice".
The public sector would lead the way in areas such as energy efficiency including the sole use of energy efficient lighting in public buildings.
All street lighting and traffic lights would also have to be energy efficient while technologies such as domestic wind turbines, solar panels, biomass burners and heat pumps would be supported with provision in the future energy produced in the home to sold into the national grid.
"In the years ahead, we will protect Ireland's success by leading a green energy revolution ...
because what is at stake in this election is more than prosperity itself. We can, and we must protect this Ireland and this Earth.