Sports utility vehicles (SUV) should be taxed "out of existence" for the sake of the planet, a UCD professor has said.
Aidan Regan, assistant professor in political economy at the university, said Ireland will have to ban SUVs to reach our climate target.
"We're going to have to do it if we're remotely serious about reaching our climate targets and getting to net zero by 2050," Professor Regan told Newstalk's The Hard Shoulder radio programme.
He added: "SUVs are the second biggest driver of climate change, they emit a quarter more CO2 than a medium-size. They are a major contributor to what is happening. So we have to reduce them somehow and I think obviously you can look at France, you can look at Norway, many countries have begun to use their tax and regulatory systems to reduce their role on the roads."
Last year there were 55,000 new SUVs sold in Ireland, compared with only 8,000 new electric cars.
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Over the weekend, Transport Minister Eamon Ryan said the Government was considering whether to increase vehicle registration tax on SUVs because of their high emissions: "One of the things we want to achieve is [to] promote more energy-efficient vehicles, to reduce the amount of imported fuel - that's a big security risk," he told Newstalk's On The Record with Gavan Reilly.
"I think over half of new cars being bought are SUVs. It does make sense for us to send a signal that we want to switch to lighter, cheaper and more fuel efficient cars."
However, he added: "Nothing is decided in the Budget - we haven't even really started that process."
Brian Cooke, director-general for the Society of the Irish Motor Industry, believes the State should not try to penalise SUV drivers.
"The tax system in Ireland is very heavy on cars," he said. "It's increasing in every budget - not just the purchase but also the use of cars. You have to look at why people buy cars; obviously one of them is the cost of the car but they buy cars that fit their driving. So it's not one size fits all. It may depend on the size of your family, it may depend on what sport you play, whether you're a member of a GAA club."
Instead, Mr Cooke said the State should keep in place incentives for people to buy electric cars - something that would speed the transition from fossil fuels to an electric future.
"I think from the emissions perspective, we are already on the road to the electrification of the Irish fleet. If you count both electrics and plug-ins, there are 10,000 of those on the roads in the first quarter of the year," he said. Mr Cooke added that "by the end of the decade, the vast majority of cars will be those that are electric vehicles".
On Monday, the latest report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) laid out what the world needs to do to stop the worst effects of global warming.
Carbon emissions must fall within three years to halt the worst impacts of climate change, the report said.
It added that they must be almost halved within five years.
Yesterday, Maynooth University climatologist Professor John Sweeney said the language of the report is "quite stark" and that you can "feel the frustration" while reading it. "The clock is ticking and we're moving closer and closer to probable critical tipping points," he added.
