Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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231. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources to detail the Departments and agencies that will be represented at the UNFCCC meetings of the SBI and SBSTA in Bonn in May 2017; and the Department that will be attending the side events on global peatlands initiative and rediscovering the magnificent carbon storage potential of wetlands and peatlands. [22348/17]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The forty-sixth sessions of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Subsidiary Body for Implementation and Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice, as well as the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement, take place from 8 to 18 May 2017, in Bonn, Germany. These meetings take place annually and are key to making progress on a range of technical matters related to the implementation of the UNFCCC and of the Paris Agreement between each session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC.

Ireland's delegation at these particular meetings comprises officials from my own Department, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the Environmental Protection Agency. Ireland’s delegation liaises regularly with other Departments and agencies, as appropriate, during the meetings as issues relevant to their areas of responsibility arise.

A range of side events are scheduled to take place in the margins of these meetings over the course of the two weeks. While not part of the programme of official negotiations, these events afford a platform for observer organisations to engage with Parties and other participants with a view to knowledge sharing, capacity building, networking and exploring options for addressing the objectives of the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement.