Irish Examiner View: Environmental plans are moment of truth for the Greens

Given the wholesale reform required and its attendant costs, the Green Party must now make the step up to political 'senior hurling'.

Environment minister Eamon Ryan talks darkly of the 'fundamental changes' affecting how people live and work which will flow from the establishment of carbon budgets. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins

When Jesus said upon returning to his home town of Nazareth that “a prophet is without honour in his own land” it was, according to some versions of the Gospels, because he anticipated that the revelations he shared would be ignored.

Some 21 centuries later, the relatively small number of Green and otherwise eco-politicians who have been elected throughout the world must fear the same reaction as we embark upon a month of environmental debate and argument about the future of the planet.