In 2010 I was part of the team that negotiated a climate bill that would have bound the Irish government to have measures in place to achieve 3% annual emissions reduction. The government collapsed before it passed and it was 2015 before the next gov passed a similar law.

10 years on and we haven't achieved anything close to this modest 3% annual reduction and we're faced with 7% per annum as a bare minimum to get on track. I wonder if the people who opposed the 2010 bill still agree it was the right thing to do.

I'm not hung up on annual emissions targets or average reductions over a period of time but what's unquestionably true is that the later you start the more painful it will be.

Affected sectors need to stop thinking about buying themselves more time before action has to be taken and start thinking about acting early to smooth out the impact over time. Flatten the curve, if you will.

I would hope the experience of 2010-2020 shows that delaying the inevitable profits nobody, but I guess we'll see. 7% will be hard to do but the focus should be less on the pain and more on the opportunity to act now.