The Minister for Energy is attending a meeting on renewable energy in Paris today, 07 December, organised by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and Sustainable Energy for All.

Minister Alex White said that Ireland is well placed to meet its legally-binding EU target to source 16% of total energy use from renewable sources by 2020.

He also confirmed he will publish an energy White Paper, which will set out a vision of how Ireland will achieve a low carbon energy system, next week.

Speaking ahead of the meeting Minister White said: "Decarbonising our energy system is essential if we are to deliver on the global climate change ambitions being discussed in Paris this week. Ireland must and will play its full part in this. We are well placed to achieve our 2020 target of producing 40% of our electricity from renewables.

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"Regarding our heat target, I am currently consulting on new incentives to encourage large users of power for heating to switch to renewable energy sources. A renewable heat incentive will be put in place next year to help us reach our target of 12% of heat generation from renewables.

"On transport, we clearly have to increase our efforts if we are to meet the 10% target, as does every other EU country. We need to encourage much greater adoption of electric cars and we can increase the 'biofuel obligation', which requires minimum amounts of biofuel to be contained in petrol and diesel.

"This should give us the confidence to be ambitious about further reducing energy-related carbon emissions after 2020."

(CD/LM)