Renewable Energy is an opportunity for Ireland’s Economy suggest.doc

Energy Crisis: An Opportunity for Ireland’s Regional Economy? A strategic shift to renewable energy is required in Ireland and this can bring economic as well as environmental dividends. - writes eco-architect and TV Producer Duncan Stewart Ireland is facing a major energy crisis. Rising global demand for diminishing oil and gas resources will continue to drive up oil, gas and electricity prices. Currently Ireland imports 90% of its total energy demand and this figure is expected to reach 93% by 2010 if current trends continue. We are now at the end of a long and increasingly vulnerable oil and gas supply chain, and with predicted rising energy costs within the next five years, this is certain to be a major factor in our diminishing international competitiveness. Of even greater concern, the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, third assessment, spells out the scientific certainty, devastating impacts and consequences of our rising greenhouse gas emissions. It confirms how global warming is rapidly melting polar icecaps, permafrost, glaciers and rising sea levels. It predicts more extreme weather events, droughts, famine, floods and destruction of our global ecosystems, threatening 40% of living species with risk of extinction, and escalating human suffering to millions of poor in the Developing World. It alerts us to the urgency of tackling our huge energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels. The EU has now set a challenging target of a 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and a further 70% reduction by 2030. This is strategically the most pressing issue concerning the survival of human civilization on this planet and coming on us much more rapidly then we expected or are prepared for. It is now clearly on the agenda of the G8 Summit to hopefully agree a global commitment. In 2005, Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions had risen to 27% above our 1990 levels, the reference year on which the Kyoto protocol commitment