Developing renewable energy technology constitutes probably the single greatest business opportunity for the Irish economy, according to the Minister for the Environment, John Gormley.
He said investment in that industry would hit more than $1 trillion in a decade, and said the country should replicate the success of existing biotech and pharmaceutical industries
Ireland is producing twice as many PhD graduates as it did only a decade ago, just one sign of the heavy investment which has been made into research and development here.
According to the Environment Minister, the way to transform that expertise into jobs and companies is the emerging green technology sector.
Mister Gormley told an Environmental Protection Agency conference in Dublin that California had already gone down this road, and we risked being left behind.
While he said the Government was working out a blue-print for development, the conference also heard some of what is required.
The head of Science Foundation Ireland, Professor Frank Gannon, said there was an urgent need for science and engineering research to support work on energy efficient technologies.
A leading UN climate change expert, Martin Parry of the IPCC, said governments had vacillated for ten years, and action, not promises, was needed now.
