Irish Examiner view: Climate campaign must build up more speed

Weaning ourselves off our dependency on Russian fuel can't come too soon: Our energy security and climate goals depend on it

The poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in London, and of Sergei and Yulia Skripal (above) in Salisbury show the Russian regime's long-standing willingness to engage in unacceptable behaviour. Picture: Dylan Martinez/Reuters

The €195bn proposals to be considered by European nations to cease the import of all Russian fossil fuels by 2027, five years from now, have come too late to stop this war, but they may have some bearing on the next. Vladimir Putin will be 74 by then. He may still be in power, or he may not. He may have been replaced by someone even worse.

With hindsight, we can see that the best moment to have introduced the timetable for stringent measures followed the annexation of Crimea in February and March of 2014. Taoiseach Micheál Martin, then a serving TD, was one of the European politicians who saw the shape of things to come.