Two Government advisory councils have come together to warn that Ireland must act to avoid massive financial costs from missing its 2030 climate targets.
In a joint report, the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and the Climate Change Advisory Council described the potential costs as "staggering".
It could require having to pay between €8 billion and €26bn to other European Union member states if climate action is not stepped up swiftly.
Currently, Ireland is heading to overshoot its 2030 greenhouse gas emissions target for transport, buildings, small industry, waste and agriculture by around 57%.
Emissions from the land and forestry sector are heading for double their target, while renewable energy generation is on course for a shortfall of 12%.
Ireland is legally obliged to buy carbon credits from other EU countries to cover shortfalls.
However, it is not known how much a carbon credit could cost, which countries will sell them, what additional climate measures the Government will implement to close the gap and how urgently it will act.
Trying to figure it all out is what the report from the Fiscal Advisory Council and the Climate Change Advisory Council is about.
The answer they came up with is that the bill could be anywhere between €8bn and €26bn.
Read the report in full here
It is an enormous range, but that is because there is so much uncertainty.
There is no uncertainty, however, about the key message in the report.
The enormous bill could be more than halved to a range of between €3bn to €12bn, if the Government rapidly implements the comprehensive range of measures in the Climate Action Plan with scale and speed.
Committing around one-tenth of planned capital spending out to 2030 to climate action could be enough, it said.
That would cover the cost of upgrading the electricity grid, reducing the cost of 700,000 new electric cars to less than €15,000, ramping up the EV charging infrastructure and supporting forestry and the rewetting of wetlands.
The report said not taking such actions would represent a colossal missed opportunity for Ireland.
'Highly speculative and highly uncertain'
Taoiseach Micheál Martin has described the report as "highly speculative and highly uncertain".
Speaking in the Dáil, he said that the Government is committed to reaching its 2030 target of a 51% reduction in emissions, but added that it will be "highly difficult" to achieve it.
He said the new Coalition is not rowing back on taking climate action but is instead "absolutely committed" on delivering on its targets.
The Taoiseach said that a report from the EPA, from last July, showed a 6.8% reduction in emissions despite a population increase and in additional homes - something he described as a "remarkable story".
He contended that the Cabinet is investing "right across the board", including on improving the electricity grid and rolling-out retrofitting of homes and businesses.
Mr Martin was replying to the Labour leader Ivana Bacik, who said Ireland was on course to miss its 2030 targets and this appeared to be a "conscious failure of political will" in Government.
Ms Bacik contended there was a "clear rowing back" on climate action including the dropping of a spending ratio rule, which prioritised spending on rail over roads.
"You are not making every effort to take climate action. Ireland is on course to miss its emissions targets," she told the Dáil.
The Labour leader said Government promises on climate action are reminiscent of its promises last year on the delivery of homes - targets the Coalition failed to deliver.
Earlier, Tánaiste Simon Harris said there needs to be "a turbo charging" of measures in the Climate Action Plan to address climate change and to reach climate targets.
Mr Harris said the Government will consider implementing measures contained in the Climate Action Plan more quickly.
"One bit of encouragement I would take from today's analysis is that it does talk about the implementation of a plan, in other words, we have many measures that we've committed to already, we have climate action plans.
"What we do now need to see is, for want of a better phrase, a turbo charging in terms of the implementation of some of those measures," he said.
'Sustainable society faster'
Chair of the Climate Change Advisory Council Marie Donnelly said it is better to make the investment into Irish households and businesses now rather than paying significant compliance costs in the years ahead.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, she said the money could be spent to benefit the Irish State and people.
"We will have to buy credits from other member states, which will cost us an enormous amount of money, and one of the reasons why we have come forward with the report today is to signal this concern and to reinforce the message that we can reduce these costs by spending the money today which will give the benefit to Irish people, society and economy and allow us to make the transition to a sustainable society faster."
Ms Donnelly added that Storm Éowyn highlighted the need for substantial sums of money to be invested into the electricity system to make it resilient and make it capable of taking all of the renewable energy possible on the island.
This will involve the investment of billions of euros, she said.
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'Enormous sums of money'
IFAC Chair Séamus Coffey said the Government needed to decide when the money for climate change is spent.
Mr Coffey said Ireland could sit on its hands and pay penalties in the billions in a few years' time or address the problem now and simultaneously get money into the economy, improving our energy supplies and potentially getting cheaper and cleaner energy.
Speaking on the same programme, Mr Coffey said there are an awful lot of uncertainties, and it is not known how many targets might be missed or fines imposed.
However, we do know that we are talking about billions of euro in fines, he added.
"These are enormous sums of money, and the issue with this is that we could wait, spend that money then on those non-compliance costs, or we could look to address it now and get the benefit of spending the money into the economy, improve our energy supply, perhaps get cleaner energy, get potentially cheaper energy, and certainly get less import intensive energy."
