Ms Anja Murray:

One over-arching theme should come through here, whether we are going to meet these enormous challenges. The IPCC fifth assessment report states clearly that there must be deep and fundamental changes to business as usual if we are to keep warming below a 2° threshold. That is what we must do.

There is a worrying theme through some of the responses here with regard to the contribution of 4.5 million people, the coal, agriculture and what else we are going to grow. We will not achieve anything in responding to climate change if we do not start to put a collective global common good before a short-term national interest. I have been alarmed that Ireland's response has been about a short-term national interest. In particular, the focus of all of our negotiations in the past couple of months, if not longer, has been about finding a concession for agriculture. Agriculture is a very important sector in the Irish economy. It contributes approximately 7% of our GDP; it is 2.6% with respect to primary agriculture. It also accounts for approximately 10% of Irish exports. Most of those exports go to the UK and other European countries.

We must look again at the polluter pays principle. We have seen the quote from Ban Ki-moon and there are incitements to change our behaviour and systems from people such as Mary Robinson, President Higgins and Pope Francis. They are not talking about seeking concessions for Irish agriculture, as this is just free-loading on the efforts of other countries that are making cuts to emissions. We need an overall cut to emissions. We will overshoot our targets and that is largely attributed to the impact of agriculture. The general taxpayer will pay for that, whether it is through purchase of credits or fines.

That is an unacceptable situation. I realise there is a good case to be made, but if one zooms out a little and looks at the ethics of the situation and whether we will achieve our emissions reduction targets and play our role fairly, as we have done for so long with regard to aid and development, seeking concessions for one sector is not ethically acceptable. I will leave the other questions to other members of my group.