Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank all Deputies who contributed to the debate. I will start by reflecting some of the stories that were told at COP about the climate change happening in the world this year. It was heartrending to listen to the Pakistani Minister for the environment make the case that her country was destroyed this year and is still suffering from the scale of that damage, with some 35 million people displaced. Interestingly, she said that every single person in Pakistan is now fixated on what is happening to their climate because they have seen what it has done to their country. I was very privileged to meet a number of ministers and young people from different countries, including ministers from some of the low-lying islands in the Pacific that Deputy Ó Cathasaigh mentioned. They described their experience of the water they draw from their wells now becoming brackish. It is not just that the sea level is rising and threatening their shore; it is coming up through their water system. They know and understand that their time on their islands may be short. With passion and commitment they had to try to raise the alarm in the world about this need for change.

We have known about this for 30 years plus but it has now reached a stage where we have to act. There are the farmers and families in the likes of the Horn of Africa who have seen five years of drought one year after the other. Their need for a response was centre stage at COP27, as it has been at previous COPs. I believe there was significant development to give some sense of hope in this world which is burning in the decision made by 198 countries to establish a mosaic of loss and damage funding mechanisms to help cover some of the cost of the damage that we already know is inevitable and that is already being done. I will reflect briefly on what was agreed at the conference and on some of the detail.

First, and perhaps most importantly, there was a response to the call from the Prime Minister of Barbados at the start of the COP that the injustice of the current finance system needs to be addressed and that the World Bank, the IMF and the multilateral development banks have a critical role and responsibility. I cannot remember who here asked what we have agreed to and if we have agreed only that the parties will meet in March. That is significant, however, because it is a political mandate and a political signal and a really powerful message that the parties have to change their ways and change the access to special drawing rights, which would allow the poorest countries in the world access to finance where they need it most. It will change the debt rules and the mechanisms for them to raise finance, which they cannot do today. As the Prime Minister of Barbados said, they have to borrow at 14% while we borrow at 4%. It is therefore not insignificant when the world comes together and collectively agrees to change the rules and to change the way those multilateral development banks work.

Second, and this was hard-fought and not easily agreed, in the final text, the final wording, there is clearly an agreement that we will expand and broaden the base of countries that may contribute to such a loss and damage fund to include the likes of China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other countries that can no longer be categorised as developing-world, just like some of those small island developing countries and less developed countries. While that is not certain or finalised in full detail, I believe there was significant progress and change in getting the agreement on the loss and damage fund to recognise that it has to be broader.

The European Union had a really significant role throughout the last week of negotiations in COP in reflecting that other industries have to play their part. The fossil fuel lobbyists did not have their way in COP because there was clear commitment from the European Union especially towards new innovative forms of financing, as they were described, to recognise the $3.9 trillion in net income earned by the fossil fuel industries this year. A percentage of that could and should go towards covering some of the damage that has been done. In the aviation industry, as Mary Robinson said at an event I shared with her, 4.5 billion airline tickets are sold every year. A €1 contribution per ticket in the aviation sector would give us the scale of funding we will need to provide climate justice in our world. While none of that is finally nailed down, there is really a clear commitment, agreement and political mandate that that is where we are going and that is why that was significant.

The European Union had a very significant role in the negotiations because in the middle of the week we listened to what the other countries, particularly some of the poorer countries in the world, were saying. Our position was not that one fund, certainly not one based on the old 1992 rulebook, would be the appropriate outcome we needed, but we listened to and heard their political need for a clear signal and commitment. On Wednesday of that week we changed our position and said, let us talk about the fund now and the nature of the financing mechanisms. Then, later in the week, when the detail of what would be put in place was shown to us towards the latter days, it was not adequate. As a Union, we collectively said a bad deal is not worth it and we would better have no deal. We said that clearly on the last morning, Saturday morning, and said we would not be able to get agreement on the basis of the text that was before us. That morning and afternoon it changed and we got the text improved. To answer the question as to why would we send Irish civil servants to such an event, it is because they were the very centre of the global negotiations at a moment of critical importance. It was Irish civil servants who were critically responsible for the improvements in that text of a major historic international global agreement.

See this speech in context