'Risk to post-Covid recovery if countries cannot buy emissions reductions'

Taoiseach Micheal Martin at the Cop26 summit at the Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow last year. Picture: PA

Failure to introduce carbon markets, which effectively allow countries to buy and sell emissions reductions, would set back the post-pandemic recovery, the Taoiseach was warned before Cop26.

Ian Talbot, the chief executive of Chambers Ireland, wrote to Micheal Martin saying the measure could reduce the cost of Ireland’s climate commitments by half, letters released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal.