Mr. Maurice Sadlier:

I thank Ms Finan. I also thank the members of the committee for this opportunity to appear before them. Tomorrow morning, I travel to Glasgow with two young people from Galway to participate in COP26 and while we are there we will advocate for the greater inclusion of children and young people in the decision-making process on climate action at all levels. We would very much have liked to have two colleagues from Tanzania join us but, unfortunately, due to Covid restrictions and massive logistics around that it was not possible.

As a representative of a child focused NGO, we want to see how children and young people are meaningfully engaged in decision-making processes around climate action and not left standing on the streets shouting in, but I will come back to that later.

The members may have seen in the news recently that Freetown, the capital city of Sierra Leone, has appointed Africa's first chief heat officer, Eugenia Kargbo. This is in response to the impacts of climate change and the ever rising temperatures in an already very hot city.

World Vision, with support from Irish Aid, is implementing a maternal and child health project on Sherbro Island in Sierra Leone.

Sherbro Island sits at the bottom of Sierra Leone and is reached by an hour-long boat journey following a seven-hour car drive from Freetown. On my first trip to Sierra Leone, I got to sit with members of the community on Sherbro Island to talk to them about the challenges they face in their everyday lives. There are two vehicles on Sherbro, which are two ambulances for the local hospital. There is no power supply or running water to the island so the carbon footprint of its nearly 30,000 inhabitants is almost negligible. When I sit with members of that community and ask them about the challenges, they tell me about their fishing grounds being washed away, their crops not growing as they used to, their growing seasons changing and the fact that they are not able to provide food for their children due to the increasing impacts of climate change.

As I was leaving Sherbro Island the next morning, my departure was delayed for two hours because of torrential downpours. I turned to my colleague and asked what was happening as it was dry season. He said the dry season could not be depended on any more because the seasons are changing. That led to a very interesting discussion about how it was alright for me to be delayed for two hours because I was departing on a very strong boat, but what if a pregnant woman needed essential maternity care from the main hospital on the mainland but could not get off the island that morning. Her life and the life of her child were being put in danger because of climate change.

What can COP26 deliver for the people of Sherbro Island and the many other communities we work with around the world? We need to see greater ambition. We all know the figures. We know the world is on track for 2.5°C warming and not the 1.5°C that is needed. That is disastrous for Sherbro Island, the Pacific islands and many of the places we work. People are already feeling the impacts of climate change and we need to see much more ambition. We need COP26 to send a clear signal that countries are moving towards a 1.5°C warming target. Ireland's official development assistance, ODA, is essential and is contributing to great progress in the sustainable development goals, SDGs, across many countries, but climate change will undermine this more and more. We need to see greater action on climate change to be able to deliver on the SDGs. This means greater action domestically and internationally.

We also need to see COP26 deliver on finance for vulnerable nations. When I sit with colleagues in Sierra Leone, we have a very different discussion about the need for finance and what actions have to be taken because of climate change. We have a high standard of living in Ireland off the back of fossil fuel development. We have been very lucky in that regard. We now have to change our emissions pathway and reduce our carbon emissions. The Government of Sierra Leone, and those of many other countries, have to deliver development for their people in the absence of this fossil fuel-heavy development. They need the funding, capacity building and support to deliver development for their communities in this new green manner. COP26 must set a pathway forward for this.

I will go back to the issue of the participation of young people, and people in general, in climate action. We are hearing very worrying noises from COP26 that negotiations are effectively closed to observer organisations. The negotiations need to be open and transparent and observers need to be given access to them. We understand the restrictions that are based on Covid. However, we encourage Members to speak out against this closing of space for civil society.

We had a very interesting discussion recently, moderated by the Irish ambassador to Ethiopia, Nicola Brennan, that brought together young people from Ireland, Ethiopia and Tanzania, on how young people have much to say about, and give to, climate action. Yesterday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke about the young people outside COP26. This should not be the case. Young people need to be at the tables and part of the discussions. They have to be there and they have to be the decision makers. Those aged between ten and 24 years currently make up almost one quarter of the world's population. They should not be excluded from decisions that impact their lives. They have a right to participate.

During the discussion with colleagues from Tanzania and Ethiopia, it was interesting to see that local government representatives in those countries are far more open to discussions with young people than those in Ireland. It is not as easy to have access to our local councillors. I ask this committee to consider a youth-only hearing to demonstrate leadership on this issue and show how we can lead the way in including young people in climate action in a meaningful manner.