Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 2 November 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence

COP26 and its Potential Impact on the Developing World: Discussion

Ms Nafkote Dabi:

I thank the Deputy for the question. We are hoping for everyone to come together but, of course, countries are coming here to represent their issues and interests. Deputy Clarke have touched upon the issue. For developing countries, their interests relate to limiting warming to 1.5°C, which will be critical. However, they are also keen for that to happen based on a fair share and equity because rich countries have historical responsibility and so on. There are, of course, differences between countries in terms of protecting their interests. Some of that is understandable, but we must come across these issues. Everyone is impacted by the crisis. We used to talk about countries in the global south and drought in the Horn of Africa or in Madagascar, as is the case now, but we also saw flooding in Germany this summer. Oxfam protested yesterday in an effort to bring the public with us and put pressure on leaders and so on. We hope to create a global village at COP26 and come up with concrete actions.