Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. I acknowledge his position in the COP and commend him on it. It is a really important platform and it is great to see Ireland represented so well on that international stage.

When we talk about the COP, human rights issues relating to the host country often come up. This year, Azerbaijan is the host. Last year, it was the UAE. Today, I will raise human rights issues relating to Israel. Israel will be represented at the COP. It will be showcasing a lot of its high-tech carbon innovations. The document that was circulated on the preparations for the 29th Conference of the Parties, in which the outcomes of proceedings were documented and the aspirations for the meeting were written down, says that the EU "REITERATES that, when taking action to address climate change, all Parties should protect, respect, promote and consider their obligations on human rights". The document talks about underlining "the need for enabling infrastructure such as transmission and distribution power grids" and the need for "international engagement through strong rules-based multilateralism", which it says is essential, and "effective cooperation with developing countries". Those aspirations or recommendations within the document ring really hollow when one considers what we see one of the participants in this particular meeting of the COP doing in Gaza. The Minister has previously stated that we should be using every diplomatic lever we can to raise our concerns with Israel as regards the genocide, the murder of thousands of children and the mayhem inflicted on Gaza over the last year. Will he take this opportunity to raise that with Israel? We need to stop seeing Israel as a normal state and taking a business-as-usual approach towards it. It is important to raise our objections and absolute horror at what Israel is doing at every opportunity.

Setting aside the human rights issues and the genocide - it is incredible that I am even saying that - and looking at emissions and climate change, in the first two months of the war in Gaza, the same amount of emissions were produced as would be produced by 20 developing countries. To rebuild Gaza is going to release emissions equivalent to those of 135 countries. On a standard basis, when Israel is not in the middle of a war such as that we see now, its military produces emissions equivalent to those of Cyprus. It is something we need to raise with Israel. We need to raise our horror at what it is doing in Gaza but also the hypocrisy of Israel attending the COP when it is destroying lives and an entire country.

There is an onus on us to do that. Will the Minister be raising that? I hope he will.