MEETING THE Republic's carbon emissions targets under the Kyoto agreement will be more difficult than imagined, and additional measures will have to be included in the forthcoming budget, Minister for Environment John Gormley said yesterday.
Speaking in advance of the publication of an Environmental Protection Agency review of the State's progress towards meeting its carbon targets, Mr Gormley said it was already clear the review would show significant problems have arisen.
Taoiseach Brian Cowen is aware of the problems and has asked Cabinet Ministers to bring forward additional measures which can be introduced to lower carbon emissions.
Two key areas in which carbon emissions have been discovered to be rising at a far faster rate than anticipated are transport and agriculture - principally "cars and cows" according to Mr Gormley's department.
Mr Gormley told The Irish Timesyesterday that the difficulty in relation to transport is that much of the proposed public transport infrastructure is not yet built. By the time projects such as Dublin's proposed Metro are completed the current Kyoto target period, 2008 to 2012, will be over.
But he said there were anti-carbon measures in the Department of Transport's Sustainable Transport Strategy which he said he would like to see implemented "within the current Kyoto period".
While he said he did not want to intrude on matters which were the responsibility for Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey, he said measures include provision for more buses and bicycles.
He said bus transport should be reliable and frequent with some real time schedules - by electronic displays at bus stops or by text alert similar to that available on the Dart. Safe cycling routes and safe routes to school were also important parts of such a strategy he indicated. In Denmark, Copenhagen had declared an ambition to have 40 per cent of all journeys undertaken by bike - and Dublin was ideally placed to copy that.
"The measures are there in the Department of Transport's Sustainable Transport Strategy, what I am concerned about is a matter of timetabling, " said the Minister.
In relation to agriculture he said he understood the underlying trend in herd numbers had been higher than had been anticipated and this was a difficult issue, but he was awaiting proposals which may include carbon offsetting.
