Failure to reach an agreement at Cop28 is not an option, Minister for the Environment Eamon Ryan has said.
His comments come as climate talks at the conference in Dubai were forced into overtime on Tuesday as countries engage in shuttle-diplomacy to seek a new draft agreement and try to close a rift over ending the world's use of fossil fuels.
Speaking on RTE radio’s News at One, the Green Party leader said any agreement had to comply "with what the science says".
He added: "We need to do it to protect our people, to protect our natural systems, and to keep temperature increases below an average 1.5 degrees. That requires an incredible change.
"It's a huge challenge to every country in the world, but also opportunity. It's a chance to move to a fairer, more secure, more peaceful energy, transport, [and] food system. We can't not do this. We have to do it."
"I don't think failure is an option here, because if we did that, I think people would be dismayed, and as climate change hits home, that there wasn't a commensurate response," Mr Ryan said.
Echoing comments made at Cop28 by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the Minister said we need to double our ambition to achieve our climate goals.
"We need an ambition to reduce emissions, but also, we need an ambition to bring justice in our world through that change."
Draft agreement
Commenting on the draft agreement put forward on Monday night, Mr Ryan said the vast majority of countries did not think it was satisfactory.
"It wasn't balanced, it wasn't coherent, it didn't match the science ambition with the actions that need to be taken in response to that."
Many nations criticised Monday's draft text for failing to call for a "phase-out" of oil, gas and coal. However, the United Arab Emirates' Cop28 director general Majid Al Suwaidi said the aim of the text was to "spark conversations".
"By releasing our first draft of the text, we got parties to come to us quickly with those red lines," he said.
Negotiators from the nearly 200 countries at the Dubai summit are attempting to agree a global plan of action to limit climate change fast enough to avert more disastrous flooding, fatal heat and irreversible changes to the world's ecosystems.
Deals at UN climate summits must be passed by consensus. Then individual countries are responsible for delivering the deal, through national policies and investments.
The draft released on Monday triggered negotiations that ran overnight into early Tuesday.
The text had suggested eight options countries "could" take to cut emissions, one of which was "reducing both consumption and production of fossil fuels in a just, orderly and equitable manner, so as to achieve net-zero by, before, or around 2050".
That would be the first time in history that a UN climate summit has mentioned reducing use of all "fossil fuels", but the move fell short of the "phase-out" of coal, oil and natural gas, or the emphasis on cutting their use this decade, which scientists say must happen to avoid climate change escalating.
Mr Ryan said meetings are ongoing with "like-minded countries" to try and broaden agreement, he added, "to help get the text over the line".
Mr Ryan said he expected the second draft, which will be published on Tuesday evening, will "start to correct the mistakes" in Monday's text and align with what needs to be done.
-Additional reporting by Reuters
