The Minister for Climate Change is being urged to set up a citizens convention on how Ireland will handle the issue.

Denis Naughten is the first member of an Irish Government to be given the portfolio.

Following his appointment a group of academics have written to him to outline the extent of the task ahead and asking that action be taken to inform citizens of the seriousness of it.

Barry Mullins, dean of engineering at DCU, said that the population needs to agree on how we will give up our dependence on fossil fuels.

“It would reach into every highway and byway, every local community, every town , every city in the country, and offer citizens and community groups the opportunity to learn what the nature of the choices are, and that would feed into essentially a 20 or 30-year vision for how we’re going to escape our addiction to fossil fuels,” he said.