Ms Cliona Sharkey:

The fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty is a very interesting proposal. We would be strongly in support of that idea. A few weeks ago we had a visitor, the founder and director of the carbon tracker initiative who coined the concept of the carbon bubble and did the numbers that led to the emergence of the fossil fuel divestment movement globally and the keep it in the ground movement. He has talked about the idea of a non-proliferation treaty. He travels the world talking about this issue. When he was here he said that he had recently been in Brazil, Argentina and Canada and in each country he met the Head of State or Ministers who said yes this is the most important issue humanity faces but that as responsible countries they had to exploit their fossil fuel reserves. He hears the same thing in every country without fail. It has to stop somewhere. It is a recipe for disaster. The idea of a non-proliferation treaty, where there is agreement on all sides not to take advantage of indigenous reserves in order to really advance the solutions, would be really important. However, we do not have the time it would take to negotiate such a treaty. We could however advance that idea to build understanding and buy-in for the idea of not investing in new reserves but at the same time to advance the end of those regimes and the idea. We need countries to step forward and say they will not exploit their reserves. Ireland being the first country to divest from fossil fuel and having taken the step to end new licences for oil exploration should step up and be one of those countries to end all fossil fuel exploration and extraction for new and existing licences.