Ms Nafkote Dabi:

Climate change is the defining challenge of our generation. These are not my words. They are the words used by the Taoiseach when he addressed the UN Security Council this year. He also said: “In the Horn of Africa ... droughts are undermining coping capacities”. We are seeing that in our work with Oxfam right across the world and we are struggling to help communities adapt to the effects of climate change. The need to adapt, or for adaptation, is critical to our work. It is an honour to address the committee from COP26. I will say a few very practical things.

We look on Ireland as one of the great brokers of international politics and one of the great dealmakers. Ireland can have a huge influence, not only on the EU but on the United States. As the committee may have heard, America is one of the main nations blocking a finance goal. It will be a huge blow if we fail to agree on this $100 billion goal at Glasgow, not only for this year but all the years ahead. It will mean that vulnerable nations are told, effectively, to fend for themselves in a crisis they did not create. We also know the Biden Administration is being blocked by Congress in reaching a deal to allow the $100 billion climate finance goal. We appeal to committee members, as Members of the Irish Parliament, to use all their influence, perhaps even by reaching out to their fellow members of parliament in America among the committees.

Loss and damage is another issue at these COP26 negotiations. As its name suggests, the idea of loss and damage is an extra layer of security to compensate for the effects of extreme, and slow onset, weather events. These are predicted to happen more as global temperature rises. This goes beyond normal mitigation and adaptation. Often, it falls to women to pick up the pieces of broken lives and families. We would like to support women through the pillar of loss and damage, but we need Ireland’s help to establish loss and damage in the COP framework and to give it a strong funding mechanism. This is a demand that more than 300 civil society organisations, including Oxfam, have made in a letter to the COP26 president.

The issue of agriculture is vital from a developing country perspective, where so many of us are farmers and many of them are women. I know Ireland faces some challenges in this area, but I have no doubt that it will support measures for sustainable agriculture at COP26.

Where does that leave us now, as my time runs short? It would be wrong of me not to mention the overarching goal of this conference, which is to agree to keep the rise in global temperature to 1.5°C by 2030. Equally, I know Ireland has a plan to get there by 2030 and I have every confidence it has the vision to do that. I urge caution, however, on the issue of the definition of net zero. This year, Oxfam issued a major report that questioned the methodology of reaching net zero, especially if it means planting trees and biofuels in Africa that force people off their land. Net zero must not mean a net zero-sum game for the developing world.

Could Ireland do more? Of course, it could. It is significant that the Taoiseach announced a more than doubling of Ireland’s climate finance commitment from €93 million to €225 million between 2019 and 2025. This is something that Oxfam Ireland has advocated for and it is a welcome announcement. It should be remembered, however, that estimates for Ireland’s fair share of climate finance contribution are between €450 million and €500 million so we still have a distance to travel to reach this figure. We have also strongly advocated that any increase in climate finance does not come at the expense of other pressing ODA commitments.

Additionality is one of the core principles of climate finance. As parliamentarians, committee members know the difference between real new money and money which is simply reallocated from one fund to another. It is important that assurances are made that any new climate finance spending is made alongside other increases to ODA funding.

Similarly, on the question of special drawing rights from the IMF, we expect that these will be made available by Ireland to the developing world, and not fudged into existing ODA. We hope that, again, Ireland will be a strong advocate for this among other countries. The strength of Ireland's overseas aid and climate finance is that it is good quality, grant-based funding. That is another message Irish negotiators can strongly convey to their counterparts at COP26.

In concluding, I repeat our main messages: adaptation over mitigation measures; grant-based financing over lending; real aid and real climate finance; support for women as farmers, providers and equal citizens. I will stop here. I thank members for their time.