Climate change: Companies cannot wait for new technologies, they must act now, warns UCC expert

Eoin Lettice: 'Too often, sectors with vested interests have pointed to future, unknown, or untested technologies as being our 'get-out-of-jail-free card' when it comes to climate change.'  Picture: Dan Linehan

Sectors that must reduce emissions cannot abdicate their responsibility by waiting for new and untested technologies to come to the rescue — they must act now.

That is according to a University College Cork (UCC) expert, who was speaking following the "now or never" scenario laid out by the world's scientific community in the latest UN-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which said that steep emissions cuts must begin after peaking in 2025 in order to avoid the worst impacts of global warming.