Mr. David Healy:

There was a question on the climate fund. It was agreed a number of years ago at an international level that climate finance would be provided by the developed countries to the developing countries to help with mitigation and adaptation. This was to be new and additional money rather than just an existing overseas aid commitment or supply of money with a new label as climate finance. The requirement for this to be additional money has not been met.

If a climate fund is established that takes money from carbon tax, emissions trading system auctions and other climate-related sources and it is dedicated to the purpose of international climate finance, it can be proven that the funding is new and additional, and that requirement is being met. One of the big issues in international negotiations is the confidence of developing countries as they see developed countries failing to meet commitments they entered into at Copenhagen in 2009. The commitment was to provide €100 billion per year by 2020 and developed countries are not on track to meet that.

The climate fund links these matters. It is entirely practical to have a climate fund large enough to fund processes within the country, although the first requirement is to use it to meet international climate finance obligations. If the fund is large enough it makes sense to use it like the environment fund, which we believe it can be modelled on or connected to. It can be used within Ireland at the same time.