Lobby group highlights cost of ignoring environment
An environmental lobby group has warned that Ireland’s failure to honour its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol will end up costing taxpayers more than €1.3bn.
Earth Summit Ireland, an alliance of NGOs, has published a report to be presented at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg highlighting Ireland’s failure to implement principles agreed at the last summit in Rio de Janeiro 10 years ago.
Spokesman David Healy was pessimistic about the prospect of this year’s summit achieving any meaningful agreement.
“What we have seen in all preparatory meetings has been the development of a major conflict between the northern countries and the southern countries, where the northern countries are not willing to take trade and development issues into account and to incorporate them into the summit in a meaningful fashion,” he said.
“If that continues at Johannesburg, there’s not likely to be agreement.”
