Mr. Jerry Mac Evilly:

I will go through some of the main aspects of what is in the legal agreement or what came from Paris in December. I went through some of the main concepts before Christmas and I will do so briefly again. This process began with the Convention on Climate Change in 1992 and what we have seen in subsequent agreements is a focus on mitigation, such as reducing emissions; adaptation, such as making sure we become more resilient to the impacts, as Professor Sweeney indicated; and an increasing focus on climate finance, or how we can ensure that developing countries in particular can develop their economies in a low carbon fashion and become more resilient.

Why was the Paris event so momentous or different? Over the past five to ten years or so, there was extreme difficulty between countries in coming to a top-down agreement with a common medium-term emissions reduction commitment that would apply to everyone. Paris was different and the basis of the agreement was that each country would make its own pledge. It provides a framework for how these pledges will evolve. These are national plans and in the Irish case, it will be done on an EU-level basis. The EU has a 2030 commitment and we will come back to that. The agreement must be implemented post-2020. The treaty is not a sudden adequate solution but it provides a clear, binding common roadmap that we cannot ignore at an EU or national level.

What are the key aspects of the agreement? I mentioned some of these key elements before. There is a clear long-term objective to where we are heading and a process for updating and increasing our commitments to reduce emissions. We are not reducing those emissions for the sake of it but to protect human rights with the impacts that climate change will have in that respect. As has been mentioned, there is also the issue of finance to assist developing countries in increasing their resilience so they can develop in a more sustainable fashion. I will address these points in turn.

Members can see in the document bullet points that paraphrase commitments in the agreement. In terms of the long-term objective, it is clear that all states have a responsibility to act but this must be done on the basis of equity. Those who are most responsible must take the lead. That is the framework or guiding principle for the entire agreement and this objective.

What is also very different about the Paris agreement, and members may have seen this in the news, is that there is now a clear reference to 1.5° Celsius. Smaller countries and low-lying states were very insistent that there should be a reference to countries pursuing efforts to limit this global warming increase to 1.5°. This is one of the key benchmarks against which our national pledges, which I mentioned previously, will be judged. There is also a long-term commitment regarding what we are all working towards. The language here is quite cumbersome, but basically our emissions must peak as soon as possible and we must achieve some sort of a balance, that is, the emissions we are producing will have to be balanced out in the second half of the century through, for example, forestry, bio-energy or carbon capture and storage. The use of land to take in emissions in carbon capture and storage poses particular risks and we will come back to that later.

Why do we focus so much on this reference to 1.5° and why was it so important? As Professor Sweeney has pointed out, we are currently on track for a 1° increase, which is already causing significant difficulties. Having 1.5° in the agreement is important, because it is a type of shorthand for a global situation where the impacts of climate change can be managed. However, as a result of the pledges I began with, we are currently on track for a 3° increase, in other words, the very worst impacts of climate change. To prevent that, we need to look closely at the processes for increasing ambition in the agreement.

This ratcheting up of commitments applies directly to this EU pledge for 2030 and to our own national policy-making. What I have laid out here are some of the key aspects of the increasing ambition process that is set out in the agreement. Many NGOs would say this could be an awful lot stronger, but it is clear that countries will have to revise their commitments every five years. All countries are going to come together in 2023 to examine what progress has been made. There is also going to be a meeting in 2018 and in 2016 on our mitigation efforts.

I said previously that the purpose of the agreement is not simply economic. This is a key point. The agreement addresses human rights directly in the preamble. We would have preferred stronger language but there is some very good, clear language in the agreement. It is positive that the right to health, rights of migrants, development, and gender equality must be taken into account when countries take action. Equally, the agreement does not address economic protection of individual industries. For example, when we look at food security, the focus is not simply on producing more food. Experience has shown over the past 30 years or more that poverty is not addressed simply by producing more food. It is a result of inequality. It is an issue of access to food. The Food and Agriculture Organisation, FAO, and others have been very positive that food security is also referred to in the agreement, that the focus is on ending hunger and the vulnerabilities of food production to the impacts of climate change, as Professor Sweeney has mentioned, and also that when we are maintaining our food production, this must be in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication.

There are a range of provisions on climate finance in the agreement. We would have preferred these to be stronger. What is important is that the agreement makes clear that our investments and financial flows have to work in favour of climate action and not against it. This will have implications for financial flows in countries. Developed countries must continue to take the lead. There is a pre-existing commitment that countries will work up to providing €100 billion per annum by 2020. This is interpreted as a floor that countries will come back to after 2020. The important point here is that these climate finance commitments are also going to increase after 2020. There are some gaps. We would have preferred a clearer reference to new, innovative sources. In other words, the onus should not simply be on the Exchequer to provide public funds. Other means should also be used, such as a carbon tax. For us, there is insufficient focus on adaptation and increasing resilience, but this can be addressed at EU and national level, which we will come back to.

I will finish by linking up how this affects EU policy and bringing in this ratcheting process and the EU pledge I mentioned before. It is fundamental that this reference to pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°, reaching a peak as soon as possible and achieving some sort of balance, changes the framework or the ambition at EU level. The EU's pledge is on the basis of reducing emissions by at least 40% by 2030. That is the overall EU commitment. The Paris agreement means that this "at least" aspect of the commitment must be operationalised, that is, we must have efforts that go above and beyond the 40%. In terms of how we will reduce emissions, what we need to see at EU level is a commitment to revise existing and proposed legislation in light of Paris and to enhance our 2020 reduction efforts. Members might not know that the EU is, overall, already on track to meet its 2020 commitments and, in light of that and the Paris agreement, the EU needs to go beyond that. There needs to be a focus on phasing out fossil fuel subsidies and addressing land emissions effectively. That means that if we take in carbon through forestry, for example, that should not mean we do less in energy or in transport. Making a link to climate finance, subsidies that go to support fossil fuels need to phased out. There needs to be a focus on grants for adaptation and increasing resilience and these moneys need to be new and additional. I will leave it at that for Dr. Augustenborg to go through some of the recommendations at an Irish level.