The Minister for the Environment has said there are concerns worldwide that the US will take its "foot off the peddle" in relation to climate change following the election of Donald Trump.
Speaking on RTÉ's Countrywide, Denis Naughten said despite this concern, there is renewed determination among other countries to plough ahead with the Paris Agreement regardless of what the United States does.
Last night nearly 200 nations agreed to work out rules for the landmark 2015 deal to tackle climate change within two years.
At the end of two-week talks on global warming in Marrakesh,which were extended an extra day, many nations appealed to Mr Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, to reconsider his threat to tear up the Paris Agreement for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Showing determination to keep the Paris Agreement on track, the conference agreed to work out a rule book by December 2018 at the latest.
In relation to Ireland's efforts, Mr Naughten said emissions are going in the wrong direction and there needs to be more progress in areas such as energy and transport.
In the short term he said efforts can be made in terms of retro-fitting homes to reduce the amount of fossil fuels that are burned.
He said €100 million had been made available in the Budget to start driving this at the beginning of the next year.
The Independent TD for Roscommon-Galway said he will publish a draft mitigation plan within the next six weeks that will look at the areas of agriculture, transport and energy.
He said agriculture is a complex area as it takes some time to make significant changes.
Mr Naughten said it would not be wise to scrap the 2025 Foodwise Programme as it would reduce our output and therefore reduce exports, creating a gap, that he said would be filled by other countries.
The Minister denied the accusation from environmentalists that this approach was a cop out.
He said farmers are committed to doing more to reduce their impact on the environment, but he said the focus also needs to be on how emissions can be reduced in the transport and energy sector.
