Ms Siobhan Curran:

It is an important point and it has been contentious. In our view, all developing countries should be eligible for the fund. As the Deputy said, climate vulnerability does not align with income all the time. This is the point that the small developing island states have been making for some time, because they are so vulnerable to sea level rises and other climate impacts that income alone is not a good barometer of climate vulnerability. To put it bluntly, there was an attempt to split up the G7 and China in the negotiations by focusing on this point. This is our view of it in civil society. It is really progressive and positive to see a proposal that will go to COP28 which includes all developing countries. One then comes to the issue of allocation and targeting. We have to think about a multidimensional approach to how we target and allocate funds, rooted in human rights. That is where the human rights language comes back in. We have to consider intersectional and inter-country inequalities. We know that marginalised groups within countries are the most vulnerable, particularly women. An allocation system will have to be decided.

The other point about this is the scale of the fund. If the fund is small and is not capitalised well, there will be a real problem in allocation. If the fund is capitalised to the scale that is needed, then a different conversation will happen. It comes back to the point Deputy Cronin made about how €1.5 billion per annum can seem like quite a high figure when we look at previous commitments. That is where we need to look at new sources of finance. That is a big discussion in the climate negotiations and wider discussions.

To reiterate, we think it is positive that Ireland commits grant-based finance to address climate impacts. We would like to see that in the loss and damage commitments. To meet the scale that is needed, new sources need to be looked at. In the report that we launched, we talked about options such as aviation taxes, shipping levies and wealth taxes. One that António Guterres has talked about a lot is windfall taxes on fossil fuel companies, which are making trillions in profits. There is a whole range of options. If we can capitalise the fund well and have a fair, human rights-based allocation system, hopefully that will go some way to addressing the need. The cost of loss and damage will only escalate unless we address our emissions. The other major thing we would like to see in COP28 is the phasing out of fossil fuels.