Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are expected to respond to Green Party demands, made in response to their framework document for government formation, early this week, possibly by Tuesday.
The Green Party had issued 17 demands in response to the joint document that would provide the basis for negotiations if the response was positive.
Sources have said the two larger parties will need to embrace perhaps the most radical shift in Irish society and its economic system since the foundation of the State if they agree to reduce greenhouse emissions by 7 per cent per annum.
The absolute “red line” identified by party leader Eamon Ryan was the commitment to lowering emissions by 7 per cent each year.
Over the weekend Green Party figures publicly and privately have spelled out the kind of measures that would be required to achieve that.
The suggestions included a dramatic reduction in the national herd, mothballing a third runway at Dublin Airport, air passenger taxes, Dublin congestion charges, massive investment in public transport, an end to free parking spaces in Dublin, rewetting 130,000 hectares of bogland, and halting major road projects, including new motorways and the Galway City ring road.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have been separately working on their responses, and hope to be in a position to issue a joint response early this week.
“We are putting a lot of work into responding properly to the 17 questions,” said a senior Fianna Fáil figure close to the process. “We are willing to try and scale up our ambition and respond positively to the 17 questions. Obviously the specific detail on how Ireland reaches the targets will be for the negotiation process.”
In a weekend interview Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin went to considerable lengths to praise Mr Ryan, and to emphasise Fianna Fáil’s credentials on and commitment to climate change. He suggested that up to a third of Ireland’s workforce could work remotely in future.
The 7 per cent target would involve a doubling of the commitments made under the current Climate Action Plan.
Over the weekend Dublin West TD Roderic O’Gorman of the Green Party said it could involve “quick wins” such as rewetting Ireland’s boglands to become carbon sinks.
Solar panels
The party’s plans also include retrofitting 1.2 million homes over a period of years, substantial offshore energy capacity, and solar panels for most dwellings in the State.
Some measures could be contentious. They include a move away from road investment, which could have implications for the new Galway City ring road and the A5 to Derry.
Other measures might include reducing speed limits on motorways to 100kph, introducing sophisticated congestion charges for Dublin, as well as ending the practice of providing free parking spaces for employees in urban areas.
Green sources have also said that much more will need to be done in agriculture, including either reducing the size of the national herd or reducing productivity in individual animals by using less intensive forms of farming, including the use of fertilisers.
The party has also proposed that every farm in the country should commit to growing a few hectares of woodland.
