Fine Gael will set up a department to co-ordinate climate change policy if it is elected to government, its leader, Enda Kenny, told a seminar in Dublin yesterday.
However yesterday's event also heard claims that the party's policy on renewable energy, published last year, does not go far enough in light of the emerging evidence relating to global warming. Others argued that the nuclear option could not be ruled out.
Outlining his party's plans to tackle growing international concern about environmental issues, Mr Kenny said the new department of environment and energy would take over some of the duties of the existing Departments of Communications, Transport, Agriculture and the Environment.
It would also work closely with the Department of Finance to "bring in our plans on time and in budget", said Mr Kenny.
"We've paid too high a price for the inter-departmental inertia that gave us 10 years of rising emissions and missed opportunities. We drive giant gas-guzzlers better suited to a safari than to the school-run in our cities and our suburbs.
"Our government will accommodate the Irish people in their desire to feel part of something bigger....The idea of the Irish people not just passively receiving emissions targets and green policy from government but actively buying into this."
Mr Kenny was speaking at a seminar entitled Energy for the Future at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland in Dublin yesterday.
The event was organised by his party in association with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.
A range of new investment priorities would be addressed by a Fine Gael-led government, Mr Kenny said.
This included expanding the bus fleet quickly and ensuring all new buses can run on biofuels; prioritising high-capacity commuter rail to cities; the completion of an electricity interconnector to open up access to a "wider diversity" of renewable energy sources; and immediate negotiations with France and Norway for electricity interconnection from those markets.
FG also supports the "ambitious" recent European Council target to reduce overall EU emissions by 20 per cent by 2020, and the aim of increasing the share of renewables in electricity production to 20 per cent by 2020.
"As an interim measure we will target an increase in renewables in electricity production to 17 per cent by 2012, the end of our first term in government," he said.
"In government we will legislate for lower emissions by legislating for cleaner petrol and diesel.
"We will compel every supplier to include an ethanol-mix in petrol, with all diesel being biodiesel."
Yesterday's seminar was also addressed by Dr Eddie O'Connor, CEO of renewable energy firm Airtricity.
He commended FG for holding yesterday's event and for its engagement on the issue of renewable energy. However he pointed to a range of recent developments as evidence that the goals outlined in the party's renewable energy plan last year were now " too limited".
As a result, he invited the party to "reassess" its targets contained in the policy document. These include Ireland generating 33 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025.
Peter Sutherland, former attorney general and EU commissioner, and current chairman of oil giant BP, said global warming represented a "decisive challenge", and underlined his company's investment of billions of euro into research on energy alternatives.
He said while it was necessary to accept that we were going to have to use fossil fuels "for a time", there was no single "technology silver bullet".
He added that it was his personal view that we "cannot rule out nuclear power" as an option.