Dr. John Sweeney:

It is right to say that there are policy priorities that we are not aware of, such as whether the policy priority of getting a seat at the United Nations Security Council trumps the policy priority of tackling, for example, the emissions from some of the leading emitters in the world. We have experienced some of that in the COP arena.

Turning to the question of coldness and winter deaths, I have completed a study on mortality and the relationship between temperature and winter deaths in Ireland. Among European countries we do have some of the highest rates of winter deaths, even higher than many of the colder Scandinavian countries, largely because of the nature of our housing stock. Certainly, while it is true to say that there would be, albeit narrowly defined and not in the short term, a reduction in winter deaths from coldness, it cannot be said without also balancing that with the fact that we would experience considerable increases in summer mortality from extra heat that we anticipate having. Also, it has to be balanced with other forms of mortality arising from climate change, such as increases in water-borne diseases. To pick out winter cold on its own and the changes that might occur is not doing justice to the full spectrum of the impacts of climate change in this case. I would certainly have liked the Taoiseach to have expressed that much better.

Loss and damage, which Ms Sharkey mentioned, are key components scientifically because the science is moving towards a situation now where we will be able to attribute the percentage contribution of human interest climate change to individual extreme events. The ability to run climate models multiple times with and without CO2 enables this to be done. We are getting to the point where there will be an accounting exercise possible for loss and damage, and we should not omit that.