Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 16 July 2015
702. Deputy Ruth Coppinger asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government if he will report on the Government's position on and aims for the conference of parties on climate change under the auspices of the United Nations to be held in Paris in France at the end of 2015; if he will report on preparations made by his Department in this regard; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29938/15]
View answerThe 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change will take place in Paris from 30 November to 11 December. The meeting is charged with agreeing “a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties”. Ireland strongly supports an ambitious, legally-binding global agreement with broad participation. In its 2014 National Policy Position, Ireland recognises global climate change as one of the key global challenges of this century and that failure to address it effectively will result in major adverse impacts that will affect all countries. Ireland is taking steps domestically to enhance its policy framework for both mitigation and adaptation, including through the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Bill, currently before the Oireachtas, and through interdepartmental work on improving policy coherence on climate issues.
The 2015 agreement should provide an enabling platform for all Parties to pursue low-carbon climate resilient sustainable development, taking account of national circumstances and changes in those circumstances over time, and which puts us on a collective pathway to keeping the average global temperature increase to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Ireland will be working as part of the EU, including through an EU climate diplomacy initiative, to ensure that the Paris outcome is as ambitious and robust as possible. In particular this will require all Parties to present ambitious intended contributions to the new agreement – so far 45 countries have put forward their intended nationally determined contributions, covering approximately 60% of global emissions. This includes the INDC of the EU and its Member States, which commits to an at least 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions on 1990 levels by 2030; a reaffirmation of the shared long term goal of collective action to keep the global temperature increase below 2 degrees Celsius and setting an ambitious and shared direction of travel to send a strong signal for action to all actors across society, including non-state actors, civil society and the private sector; a mechanism or process to ensure that global ambition will be raised over time; a robust transparency and accountability framework that will enable tracking of progress and ensuring all Parties live up to their commitments.
As part of this framework, the rules relating to accounting of the land-use sector, including forestry, will be of particular interest to Ireland. Globally, the agriculture and land-use sectors have an important role to play in the transition to a safe and sustainable, low-carbon future. It will be crucial that the sector is included in the agreement in a holistic way and that high-level principles framing the process of developing detailed rules in subsequent years are set out.
In preparing for COP21, so far this year there have been two formal negotiating sessions and there will be two further sessions before the Paris COP. At the UNFCCC, Ireland participates as part of the EU. This engagement is through a national delegation, led by my Department and made up of officials from a range of Government departments and agencies. My Department coordinates participation by the wider delegation in on-going work in this area through a number of EU Expert Groups which focus on areas of mitigation (including land issues), climate science, adaptation, climate finance and technology transfer, along with groups discussing the strategic overview and negotiation tactics. The delegation has been active in all negotiations to date under the UNFCCC and specific preparations for COP21 have been underway at EU level for some time.
At Ministerial level, the Environment Council will meet to discuss the negotiations at its informal meeting next week and Environment Council conclusions are expected in September.
