Mr. Conor O'Neill:

I will pick up on the questions that are most relevant to the presentation I have made. I will begin with the question of climate finance.

Senator Higgins is right about the quality aspect. When we come in here, we try to give constructive criticism and highlight the areas where we need to do more and need to do better, but it is also important to recognise the quality aspect, as outlined in the statement. We can always do better in this sense, but relative to what we are seeing in other European countries, Ireland is definitely a leader. The message will be to hold and maintain that. Countries like France, for example, have provided a lot of money through loans, and we have discussed how inadequate and unjust that is. Ireland has a role to protect the model that we have developed, to strengthen it and to urge other EU states to follow. The quality piece is very important.

In terms of our fair share, the estimate we have given here is €545 million per year. The target, pushed out to 2025, is €225 million. The committee can see that we have some way to go. As I mentioned earlier, the budgets, both carbon and financial, are where the rubber meets the road. The academic research backing up those estimates is footnoted and referenced in the statement.

On the question of trust, I do not think one could pick a better word to describe the dynamic as it was at COP in Glasgow and how it will be in Egypt on this question. In fact, a huge amount of the nationally determined contributions - the national plans submitted by every country that is a party to the treaty – from the global south have an asterisk, as they are conditional on receiving the funding that has been promised but has not been delivered. If anyone wants to be more cynical about it, there is a self-interest here: providing this finance is not just a moral obligation, it makes it more likely that everyone in the world will be able to get their emissions down, and we would all benefit.

On the fair share of the remaining global carbon budget, we mentioned it before, but Senator Higgins is right to re-emphasise it. I think it might have been in this committee or it could have been in the Seanad that it was called a forum of carbon colonialism. Christian Aid would throw its support behind that assessment because in the context of the global carbon budget, to date, it has been this part of the world that has eaten the vast majority of it. Based on the current plans, we are going to keep doing that. I will repeat those two questions. Are we overeating our fair share emissions-wise? Are we providing our fair share in terms of finance? They are the high-water marks and challenges for Members of this Parliament.