Mr. Barry Andrews:

I thank the Cathaoirleach and Members of the Seanad. It is a great honour to be here today. It is a great exercise for us to do this. This is the second occasion on which the Seanad has invited us here. We will, over the next hour and a half, be able to share with Senators some of the work we are doing on the European framework to try to tackle climate change, but particularly climate justice. It is apt that the Cathaoirleach mentioned the former President, Mary Robinson, who set up the Climate Justice Fund, which had its headquarters just around the corner from here, and who is a global figure in this space. Even today, there is in article in The Irish Timesin which she expresses her continued frustration at the lack of global action on climate justice. In that context, it is apt that we are having this conversation.

With the energy crisis and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it is natural that climate action has taken something of a back seat from a policy point of view if a person only reads the newspapers. If that is true, then climate justice has taken an even further back seat than climate action.

I work on the International Development Committee of the European Parliament. We are briefed almost on a weekly basis on the consequences of climate injustice. This week, for example, I heard about the pastoralists who live in the area of Turkana, which is on the Kenya and South Sudan border. Of course, they move their livestock around. They seek pasture and places of water for their livestock but the rains have failed on four successive occasions. The strong possibility is that the September-October rains are also going to fail, which is an unprecedented fourth failure. The areas of pasture and areas of water availability are shrinking and the pastoralists are gathering in ever greater numbers in ever smaller concentrations. This is naturally leading to conflict. Many of these communities are armed. There is also a huge increase in disease as a result of these concentrations. Diseases spread from animals to other herds of animals that are being moved around. This is the reality. We read today in Mary Robinson's article that a person dies of hunger every 48 seconds in Africa. This means that 100 people will die while we have this conversation. It is not that we want to diminish the concerns we have about how the energy crisis is affecting us and our constituents. It is not an either-or situation. What we must be able to do is strive to deal with both at the same time. I am afraid to say the European Union from time to time forgets about these key issues and about the principles of global solidarity that should be at the heart of the European project. That is where we are right now.

I want to make a few references to the European Green Deal and Fit for 55 package. This is the flagship legislative programme the European Union has announced. It has created some conflict between the Oireachtas and the European Parliament and the European Commission, particularly the extension of the emissions trading system, which was announced a year ago. A reasoned opinion was provided by the Joint Committee on Climate Action, as it was then called, of which some Senators may be members, to complain that the emissions trading system, as proposed by the European Commission and supported by the European Parliament and European Council, is a source of serious concern for this Oireachtas because it breaches the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality. Ireland is already taking major steps around carbon tax and ring-fencing the proceeds of carbon tax for climate action. The argument is that the European Commission is diminishing the overall impact of that and this is an offence against the principle of subsidiarity. It is an interesting debate. The Oireachtas has a point to make here, and it will be interesting to see how the matter is dealt with.

I will refer to two things I am dealing with that have an impact on climate action and climate justice. I am the rapporteur on the International Trade Committee for a legislative file known as the directive on corporate sustainability and due diligence. Due diligence is the idea that every company that is caught by the proposal will have to check its supply chains and value chains to make sure that it is not offending against human rights concerns and against environmental damage in the operation of those chains. In other words, those companies must ensure that they are not getting products from places where child labour is in use or that diminish water resources for indigenous populations. The companies in question have to perform an X-ray on their supply chains, satisfy themselves and their boards as to the position and report on it. That is the due diligence aspect. There is also an enforcement aspect whereby any company that fails to carry this exercise out properly could be subject to civil liability.

This directive that is coming from the European Union is very interesting. It will apply to all companies that are caught by it. A company must have at least 500 employees to fall within the ambit of the directive. I am arguing as the rapporteur that it should be wider than that. I am arguing also that the types of environmental damage that should be caught by the legislation should be wider than is currently proposed. It will be an interesting exercise to carry out. However, I am also very concerned that the due diligence legislation does not imperil existing supply chains with developing companies. If I am on a board of directors, for instance, I might just take a risk-averse decision and decide to close off any supply chains I have to developing countries where there are low levels of governance, compliance and respect for human rights. I might close off all of those supply chains and look for products in other countries that are a little bit less developed. That is damaging for the developing world. We do not want to do that. We want to take every step to avoid that.

The other area I wish to talk about very briefly is that of the sustainable development goals, SDGs. We set up an organisation in the European Parliament last year called the SDG Alliance. There are 25 MEPs from all different groups in the European Parliament who are members of the SDG Alliance. We are trying to underline the importance of implementing the SDGs. On one hand, we have climate action, and that is correct. That is SDG 13. All the rest of the SDGs give us climate justice and a just transition. All the areas around poverty, hunger, education and gender equality that are in the SDGs give us a roadmap to a just transition. We start with climate action in all the legislative packages we have right now, and the way to get there and to avoid the negative social consequences of climate action are the SDGs. It is an off-the-shelf roadmap to get to that change we need.

Unfortunately, however, the SDGs, like many other very interesting international frameworks, have slid down the agenda because of Brexit, the pandemic and the Russian war in Ukraine and the resulting energy crisis. During the summer, we managed to get through the European Parliament an own-initiative report that attracted great support. However, I would like to see Ireland play a much more prominent role in the EU and internationally on the SDGs, for example, by putting pressure on the United States. It is extraordinary to think that only five countries in the world have not done a voluntary national review under the SDGs, namely, Yemen, South Sudan, Haiti, Myanmar and the United States of America, where the UN is located. We need to use our good offices to put pressure on the Unites States to take seriously the SDGs and multilateralism.

I will hand back to the Leas-Chathaoirleach. I thank Senators for the opportunity to speak.