Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Part of our programme, both at the UN and everything on which we are focused, is to address that. I very much remember the then President's visit to Somalia. What I saw in the Horn of Africa first-hand is that there is one difference and it is something we need to be so conscious of more than anything else. In previous times, there was a failure of rains over a period of years and those rains may return. What we are looking at now is the first complete failure caused by climate change. This is a situation that has been brought about where there will not be a return to a pastoral life for the people who live in that part of the world. There will not be a return to the climate system that was there. One of the key things we are addressing, particularly through climate adaptation finance and through our development programme, is not only putting in place the immediate humanitarian aid which is needed on the spot to prevent the fact that 1.5 million children are acutely malnourished as we speak but to put in place the support mechanisms that will enable those people to change the way in which they are living. We are funding programmes that specifically will allow for a different type of agricultural existence to take place there where people will be able to remain and continue to live because we are never going back to what we had because of climate change.

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