Irish Examiner View: Car limits next off the starting grid in bid to hit climate targets

Currently, the carrot looks insufficiently big or attractive to command the scale of transition that is needed to reduce the use of car transport here.

A €10 daily charge for driving in cities such as Cork, Dublin, Waterford, Galway, and Limerick is among the measures examined by the National Transport Authority.

What will it take to get the majority of us out of our cars and into energy-efficient, pollution-reducing public transport in time to make a major contribution to saving the planet? That is the conundrum facing governments around the world. No one has found a solution yet.

In Ireland, we have ambitious Climate Action Plan targets to cut emissions by half at the end of this decade. Transport is the second-highest generator of greenhouse gases after agriculture, but reducing that input requires huge changes in behaviour and a massive switch to public and ‘active’ transport (by which the planners and social engineers mean cycling, walking, scootering, and jogging).