Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As I said in the House previously, climate change is the biggest threat facing humanity at present. We have to be the generation of politicians that turns the tide on climate change and biodiversity loss. We can do that in many ways, first, by reducing our emissions. Our greenhouse gas emissions are falling, although not fast enough. However, greenhouse gas emissions per capita have fallen considerably in Ireland in recent years. Second, we also need to scale up adaptation because, unfortunately, so much of climate change has already happened. It is baked in as inevitable so we need to scale up adaptation. Third, we need to bring something to the table when it comes to what we ask the rest of the world to do, particularly the poorest and most vulnerable states, some of which will be the worst affected. We are doing that through climate finance. I made the commitment, which we will honour, to provide €225 million a year in climate finance, every year, by 2025.

What is required is a system change. I agree with that call. We need to change the way we generate our electricity, the way we heat our buildings and the way we travel. We need to change our food systems too. That will take time and investment. Changing systems that took generations to build up in a decade or two is an enormous challenge, and one that will take time and require a lot of investment. Mary Robinson has said we are in a very pivotal moment when it comes to climate action. We are on the verge of an irreversible climate catastrophe and, at the same time, we are on the verge of inventing and deploying all the technologies we need to make sure this does not happen. That is the challenge before us.

We have gone up and down the index the Deputy mentioned a few times through the years.

I think it is done by an NGO. I do not think it is an official UN or COP index. NGOs have lots of indexes, as the Deputy knows, and they are entitled to have them.

The Deputy mentioned a treaty. When it comes to any treaty we would, of course, have to see it. We would have to have the legal advice of the Attorney General. Ideally we would have to be involved in negotiating it. Generally if this country adopts a treaty we would be involved in some way in negotiating it. I am not sure this has been the case but we will certainly take a look at it.

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