Ms Cliona Sharkey:

I will briefly speak to the question asked by Senators Devine and Higgins about finance flows in terms of volume. When the need to increase climate finance and create a new category of climate finance - loss and damage - is raised, we often hear the view that there is no more money. However, denying the reality of the need is not going to resolve the problem. If we examine the level of finance that is continuing to go into the problem, for example, fossil fuel subsidies of all kinds, we see that a great deal of finance could be repurposed into solutions. There has been considerable debate for many years about the establishment of new and innovative mechanisms to generate new streams of finance and tackle climate damaging activities, for example, shipping levies, aviation levies and fossil fuel extraction taxes. This could be a double win. There are sources from which the available levels of public finance could be increased.

Regarding trade, I agree with Professor Sweeney and Senator Higgins that it is key that we examine where the crunch points are where we will make structural, systematic changes in investment that will impact on climate change mitigation. That is why concerns were raised by the likes of us and many other stakeholders in the Irish debate about TTIP and CETA and the risk that the mechanisms of some such trade negotiations would impinge on states' ability to legislate for public health and public good issues such as climate change.