Minister for the Environment Dick Roche is coming under pressure to act after the publication of figures showing Ireland's greenhouse gas emissions rose in 2004 after a modest drop in the previous year.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report shows Ireland's greenhouse gas emissions are now 23.5 per cent higher than in 1990, while our current Kyoto commitment is to limit the increase to 13 per cent before 2012.
Most notably, transport emissions have increased by 6 per cent on 2003 figures, and residential emissions have increased by 7 per cent.
Environment Minister Dick Roche said that Ireland's economic boom is responsible for rising greenhouse gas emissions but the situation is improving.
"We do have a challenge and we do have to have meet that challenge in a variety of ways," he said.
Mr Roche predicted that emissions for 2005 will be lower than 2004 as industry becomes more environmentally conscious. The Nitrates Directive and the changes in agriculture should also help, he said. "It seems to me that there is certainly some reason to be optimistic that we will see improvements in the next report we see from the EPA."
Mr Roche referred to positive Government measures like excise relief on biofuels announced in the Budget. He added: "I know a number of members of the Cabinet who are looking at new fuel-efficient cars. I am interested in one of the hybrid cars coming on the market.
The Labour Party's environment spokesperson, Eamon Gilmore, blamed increased transport emissions on " the Government's inability to tackle gridlock as well as their ongoing refusal to make any meaningful investment in our public transport system.
"Meanwhile, carbon-taxation measures, which most commentators agree are crucial, were initiated but abandoned," he added.
"There is no other option and there is no more time to waste," Mr Gilmore said. "The current Climate Change Strategy has clearly failed. It needs a new focus and a new impetus. Although it was published over five years ago, many of the key measures have not been implemented."
He also warned that the estimated cost of the fines Ireland would be liable to pay, for missing the legal targets under Kyoto, would be up to €120 million per year for five years.
"This really is an astonishing waste of money," Mr Gilmore said.
In response to the EPA figures Fine Gael Spokesperson on Communications and Natural Resources, Bernard Durkan, said that Fine Gael has already proposed conservation and insulation measures to reduce home heating costs and emissions by up to 26 per cent.
"We also proposed a motor car fuel and emission efficiency labelling system which could reduce fuel costs and emissions by anything up to 50 per cent in respect of domestic vehicle use," he said.
Mr Durkan called Minister Dempsey's decision last year stop incentivising wind farm construction as "absurd".
"It beggars belief that the Minister still has no coherent policy on this and is instead creating barriers to progress when he should be facilitating the development of the alternative energy industry," he added. Mr Durkan called on Ministers Dempsey, Roche, Cullen and Cowen to implement such measures.
Green Party environment spokesman Ciaran Cuffe TD called on the Department of the Environment to publish its review of the Climate Change Strategy "without delay".
He said that it is not necessary to "to reinvent the wheel" to reduce emissions from the transport and building sectors.
"Ireland needs to invest in public transport so that commuters have the choice to leave their car at home. We need to ensure that we are building homes and offices are to the highest energy efficiency standards," he added.
Mr Cuffe emphasised that the review of the National Climate Change Strategy is necessary "if we are to identify policies that will ensure a steady reduction of emissions levels in all sectors".
Although the Kyoto protocol allows countries to comply with their commitments by a combination of measures including the purchase of carbon credits, Friends of the Earth warned that, based on today's figures, this was an expensive option for Ireland.
In a statement, it said that at current market rates the price of the carbon permits needed to cover Ireland's overshoot above our Kyoto target would be around €150 million a year.
Greenhouse Ireland Action Network said that today's figures "confirm the urgent need for a strong new initiative and a more comprehensive and engaged public debate on what is widely perceived - outside Ireland at least - as the greatest social, political and economic threat the world is facing during most of the current population's lifetimes."
Grian spokesman Pat Finnegan said: "The declines in emissions registered in 2002 and 2003 were in fact merely temporary reductions caused by closures of large, highly inefficient plants - IFI in Arklow and Irish Steel in Haulbowline, Cork, respectively."
He added that, apart from these "once-off emissions reductions", the trend in national emissions is "still resolutely upward".