As Paris’conference COP21 is coming to an end, Ireland’s Minister for Energy Alex White declared, when he arrived last Monday, that Ireland can still make the objective of 16pc renewable energy production by 2020.

Speaking last week, Taoiseach Enda Kenny also said that the target set for Ireland, lowering carbon emissions by 20pc by 2020, is not fair on a country that is a major producer of agricultural goods. But Minister White appears more confident of our chances of meeting those renewable energy aims.

Attending the Lima Paris Action Agenda meeting on Renewable Energy, Minister White said in advance of his talk that Ireland is well placed to meet its legally-binding EU target to source 16pc of total energy use from renewable sources by 2020.

This is in spite of the cautious news earlier this year that Ireland has only now achieved the halfway point of 8pc renewable energy production :

“Ireland and the international community face a huge task but, whatever the difficulties, I believe we can meet the challenge of global warming”, Minister White explained. He also added :

“Last week, Ireland became one of only a handful of European countries to legislate on this when the Climate Change Bill completed its passage through the Oireachtas. Next week, I will publish an energy White Paper, which will set out a vision of how Ireland will achieve a low carbon energy system. We are poised to do great things.”

It does appear, however, that some of the targets that are subsections of the key target are struggling to be reached, particularly with clean energy transport accounting for only around 5pc of its 10pc target. Minister White said on the matter :

“We need to encourage much greater adoption of electric cars and we can increase the ‘biofuel obligation’, which requires minimum amounts of biofuel to be contained in petrol and diesel.”