Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade díospóireacht

COP21: Discussion

Chairman

I welcome our guests. The very important 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, COP21, is to take place in Paris soon. I warmly welcome Mr. Jim Clarken, Oxfam Ireland, Mr. Oisín Coghlan, Friends of the Earth, Ms Anja Murray, Stop Climate Chaos, and Mr. Jerry Mac Evilly, Trócaire. We need only look at this morning's weather and the amount of rain falling to know exactly how our climate has changed. It is a timely meeting, in advance of COP21 and the 11th session of the COP serving as the meeting of the parties of the Kyoto Protocol, CMP11, which will take place from 30 November to 11 December in Paris. We will hear a presentation from each member of the delegation and will then have a question and answer session.

I remind members, witnesses and those in the Gallery to switch their mobile phones off for the duration of the meeting because they cause interference with the recording equipment, even in silent mode. Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. By virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their evidence to the committee. However, if they are directed by the committee to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and they continue to so do, they are entitled thereafter only to a qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and they are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person, persons or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable.

Mr. Jim Clarken

I thank the committee for inviting us here and for showing the level of interest it has done on this issue and on our wider development agenda perspective. We are very fortunate that we have such a body that has robustly engaged on a wide range of developmental issues over recent years. Climate change is paramount to success in this area. We will talk initially about climate impacts and what climate justice means. We will give some background on the negotiations and how we have reached this important point before the Paris meeting, which will happen in a couple of weeks. We will focus specifically on climate finance and what the EU and Ireland should do.

Although some members might be more than acutely aware of it, I will reinforce the point for those in any doubt that climate change is real and is happening today, not in the distant future. It has been happening for a number of years and is having a very devastating impact. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, was an unprecedented scientific collaboration and it is now a consensus view of the world's scientific community, approved by the world's governments. It is a landmark way of working on climate issues. The evidence of where the climate has moved to and where it is headed is indisputable. It is important to note this, given that occasionally there are suggestions that the conclusions could be discredited or doubted. It is very clear where climate is heading. It is also clear, based on the scientific evidence, that if the increase reaches 2° Celsius, it will be a tipping point from which it will be very difficult to return, and we will have a potential spiral of other events which we will be unable to control.

The committee and Ireland have shown great leadership in development support and assistance over many years. Mr. Coghlan and I were in New York at the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, SDG, summit, where we were very proud to see the leadership Ireland had shown, particularly the team led by Ireland's ambassador to the UN, David Donoghue, in the negotiations to get the extraordinary agreement over the line and in such a business-like fashion that embraced a huge consultation process. More than 1 million people across the globe participated and had their voices included. We have 17 challenging but achievable goals to which the world's governments, including ours, have signed up. It is a tremendous credit and the fact Ireland was in a position to co-chair it and lead it to this important conclusion reflects the long-standing credit and reputation Ireland has had in this space for many years.

I have started with this because this tremendous leadership, despite dark times in our country, is contradicted by our approach to the environment and climate. The important message I want to communicate is that one cannot be committed to one but not the other. If one believes in the importance of our international potential to make change happen and reverse extreme poverty, which we as a people and this body do, we must also firmly believe in what we can do in terms of the environment and climate change.

During the past 15 years leading up to the SDGs summit, we worked through the millennium development goals and halved global poverty and dramatically reduced hunger. However, climate change very much threatens the future and the development successes we have had. We are on the cusp, during the next 15 years, of ending extreme poverty and hunger forever. It has been shown that it is possible and can be done. However it will not happen unless we robustly challenge and tackle the climate change reality. Some of the figures are staggering. By 2050, up to 50 million more, rather than fewer, people will be put into hunger.

Rain-fed crop production could fall by up to 50% in some African countries by 2020, that is, in the relative short term. The WHO estimates that climate change has already been responsible for 150,000 deaths and that will increase to a quarter of a million per year from 2030 to 2050. A 2° increase in temperature could lead to a 30% reduction in water in rivers in southern Africa and South America. Sometimes it is hard to move beyond these statistics. I travelled with Tony Connelly from RTE a couple of years ago to make a documentary on the impacts in Malawi. In the programme, we talked to real farmers whom we met. Prior to that, we travelled with Mary Robinson to parts of Kenya and spoke to ordinary farmers about their lifetime experience and what they had seen. The change in rainfall means that huge areas of land are no longer arable at all. Unpredictable rain has an impact on societies that have always known exactly when to plant, when they should harvest and what kind of crops they would have. The yields would go up and down every year but they would be fairly predictable within a range and that has completely changed. It is having a drastic impact on families, on the lives of people and on the hunger trajectory.

To discuss it in the geopolitical space, it is estimated that a million farmers in Syria have left the land in the past ten or 20 years. Who knows how that may or may not have contributed to what is happening in that country. That level of uncertainty has not been helpful. let us put it like that. Into the future, more and more conflicts and issues will arise because of the impact of climate change. Large cities in coastal areas are likely to disappear and hundreds of millions of people will have to flee. The impact on migration and those types of crises will be dramatic. It seems we have not taken this as seriously as we take other issues, and we have to change that mindset and trajectory.

To give a sense of the justice element, my presentation shows that the northern, so-called developed countries are responsible for creating climate change, yet the developing countries are the most impacted by it. The entire continent of Africa produces about 2% of the world's carbon, yet people there are suffering as a result of what we have done in the past 150 years in terms of the Industrial Revolution and so on.

With regard to vulnerabilities, I have produced a chart showing the issues that those of us who work in the development and humanitarian space deal with all the time - natural disasters, poor governance, water insecurity, livelihoods, hunger and conflict. That is in the normal run of things. When one adds the impact of climate change to that, one sees those kinds of vulnerabilities are increased dramatically, namely, increased droughts, flooding, erratic rainfall, temperature rises, increases in vector-borne diseases, land loss and displacement. Many of these things can lead to greater conflict and can make the governance situation even worse. It can dramatically increase the number of natural disasters. The past ten years have been some of the hottest on record. There has been a huge impact on crops in places like Australia, Russia, the US and developing countries. The impact of that in this part of the world is that prices increase and change. In other parts of the world it means that people starve. There is widespread hunger which leads to widespread conflict which leads to many other issues with which we will also have to grapple. This leads to humanitarian crises where there is extreme food insecurity and conflict can result from these issues.

I will give an example of one family that has a farm that has been completely decimated by drought. This is something we are seeing increasingly. We have first-hand examples of how that is happening dramatically in many places. From a development perspective, we have made great strides and we cannot allow them to be reversed. This will require a concerted effort. We will present to the committee what we believe Ireland's position should be leading into these talks. If we are to be honest, we are not there yet. We are concerned that there has been a slightly schizophrenic way of thinking by Government so far on the approach to development, hunger and those issues we care about when it comes to the climate part of the story.

As this progresses, none of us will be immune. I will show another picture that was taken in Ireland. It was not taken in Bangladesh. Up to €2 billion a year is lost by small farmers in Ireland. There have been lengthier rainfall events in winter, more intense downpours in summer, increased droughts in summer and health risks to farm animals, which will have a tremendous impact on our important agricultural sector. We will talk more about that later, but agriculture is a concern in terms of the impact and the cause.

We are a coalition of development and environmental organisations working closely together because we care about the same issues. The message from the development side of this coalition is that a sense of justice is required. If we believe in a just world - and we do - we have to be responsible and deliver on that responsibility, particularly to those who have had nothing to do with creating this huge problem we face.

I have another small chart showing the per capita CO2 emissions. Per capita, Ireland's emissions are a hundred times those of Uganda and multiple times those of everyone else. We have one of the largest in the world, so we have much more to do in this regard. The message from the development space is very much that this is a justice, fairness and responsibility issue. We have managed to support others to lead themselves out of poverty. It is also about ensuring we do not erode the good work we have done. We have worked too hard for that. People here have been committed and farmers, rural communities and people in developing countries have struggled to deliver what we have got so far. We cannot allow ourselves to go backward. We have to move forward. If we are going to deliver on the sustainable development goals, we have to deliver on our climate commitments.

I will now hand over to Mr. Mac Evilly who will take the committee through the next phase.

Mr. Jerry Mac Evilly

I am the climate policy officer working with Trócaire and I have been following the climate negotiations. I thank the Chairman. Our executive director, Eamonn Meehan, sends his apologies. He is out of the country at the moment but he thanks the committee for its invitation. Mr. Clarken has set out the ongoing impacts on climate change and the issue of climate justice. I will now very quickly go through what is going on in the negotiations, the EU and Ireland's role, and our final recommendations. I will try to get through this quickly.

I will address some of the jargon first. Some members of the committee may be aware of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which was signed in 1992 with a focus on driving down emissions. It focuses on three main areas: adaptation, in other words, protecting the poorest from the worst impacts of climate change; mitigation by preventing further climate change by reducing emissions across all sectors; and the overarching objective of climate finance, which I will speak about in more detail later.

I will give some background on what has been happening in recent years in the run-up to Paris. Some members might be familiar with the Kyoto Protocol which was the first international agreement on mandatory emissions reductions.

This commitment has been renewed and runs until 2020. Negotiations have been taking place in recent years with the aim of putting in place a new post-2020 agreement. This has been a very difficult process and negotiations have not succeeded thus far. One reason has been that parties have attempted to negotiate on what is known as a top-down agreement, in other words, specific overall emissions reduction objectives which all parties would have to meet in the relative near term. What is different about Paris is that it is based on a bottom-up rather than top-down approach. Parties have put forward voluntary and non-binding national pledges. In the context of the European Union, this has been done as part of a bloc. These pledges would then sit as part of the agreement but not within the core legal agreement. The upshot of this is that there is a high degree of positivity that agreement will be reached in Paris in a month's time.

While there is likely to be a high degree of political recognition of the need for action, the bottom-up approach on the basis of national pledges has been shown to be insufficient. The national pledges that have been put forward will not be adequate to prevent the worst impacts of climate change. The United Nations did an analysis which has shown that 3° Celsius of global warming is likely on the basis of the voluntary national pledges. In Paris, many civil society organisations and non-governmental organisations will focus on the need for a process to improve, ratchet up or increase commitments and to ensure that this procedure is a core part of the agreement. In other words, we would not simply have a process of reviewing the pledges, known as intended nationally determined contributions, INDCs, every few years. Instead, the INDCs would be analysed early and there would be rolling cycles of commitments.

Our other focus is on the need for a long-term objective based on the latest available scientific evidence. This means that to prevent the 3° temperature increase, fossil fuels must be phased out and a process introduced for achieving 100% renewable energies. This means achieving zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Many non-governmental organisations are focusing on the need for human rights protections to be integrated as a core part of the agreement. The principal reason for this is that climate impacts and the actions taken to mitigate them have significant potential to undermine human rights. For example, the use of biomass or biofuels to reduce emissions can have the effect of increasing competition for land. The upshot of this is that the poorest and most vulnerable people can be displaced from their land as a result of land grabs. For this reason, human rights protections need to be a core element of the agreement.

In addition, climate finance is a major part of the agreement and relates both to pre-2020 and post-2020 processes. Climate finance is financial support to ensure that the most vulnerable communities can adapt to current and future impacts and develop in a sustainable fashion, in other words, development will not be based on fossil fuels, as has been the case here. Trócaire and other organisations are very much involved in ensuring that there is proper adaptation to climate change. Improving systems in sustainable agriculture is one example of the type of adaptation currently taking place using climate finance.

Having provided a brief overview of the agreement, I will now address what actions need to be taken at a European Union and national level. The next slide features two statements from the recent encyclical by Pope Francis. Members may ask why a Papal encyclical features in a presentation on climate change. The encyclical, which was released in June 2015, is an excellent document that sets out the grounds for climate action. It makes clear that the need for a climate response is effectively a moral and ethical issue. The two statements I have included note the injustice of allowing the most vulnerable to pay the high costs of climate impacts and of developed countries taking a business as usual approach that hampers the finalisation of a new international agreement.

We have spoken a great deal about climate justice and the need for an equitable response. What is a fair response and how can we support equitable action by developed countries? Civil society organisations have carried out a detailed technical assessment of how countries need to respond in respect of the INDCs or climate pledges they made as part of the Paris agreement. This analysis includes the level of emissions that needs to be reduced, the pledges that have been made by countries and an assessment of their capacity, on the basis of income and wealth, to produce a fair share. The analysis shows that the European Union's response in terms of mitigation and reducing emissions is approximately one fifth of its fair share.

How must the European Union respond? I will not discuss this in great detail other than to note that the EU's pledge or INDC to reduce emissions by at least 40% is too low and must be increased. EU legislation, particularly on energy efficiency and renewable energies, needs to be improved. Fossil fuel subsidies must be phased out, as must the use of coal. We must also address land emissions effectively.

I will provide a little more context on the European Union's response to climate finance before doing the same for Ireland. What can the EU do to provide more climate finance? It can ensure that finance provided is new and additional to existing overseas development aid. This revenue can be generated by auctions of emissions rights under the emissions credits system. The revenues from such auctions could be used to generate climate finance. We are strongly focused on ways in which climate finance can be generated. Ireland has, however, been silent on this proposal. At European Union level, we are also strongly focused on the provision of grants for adaptation. This means avoiding the use of loans, which countries would struggle to repay. We should also have targets for climate finance post-2020.

Having provided the EU context, I will move on to Irish foreign policy. In May last, the United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, made a powerful statement on Ireland's inaction or rather its need to take action on climate change. To be clear on this matter, Ireland is not in a leadership position in its climate response. The UN Secretary General focused on the need for a whole of government approach to climate change and the risks for Irish foreign policy if inaction continues. What is the level of inaction? The commitment made under the 2012 Kyoto Protocol was achieved largely due to the impact of the recession. However, Ireland has not had a strategy since 2012.

We have a climate Bill, which I hope will be finalised in the coming weeks. We are one of only four member states that is not meeting its 2020 EU targets. The Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, has clearly stated that we are not on a path to meeting our 2020 and 2030 emission reduction commitments.

To reduce emissions, we need to finalise and implement a mitigation plan as part of the climate Bill as early as possible. We must ensure that Government policies that affect developing countries work to promote poverty reduction. We need coherence between our domestic and development policies. This commitment was set out in Irish Aid's document, One World, One Future: Ireland's Policy for International Development. There needs to be action on two key commitments within that document, namely, producing a report on policy coherence and using a relevant interdepartmental committee to review that coherence.

The final few slides are on what Ireland needs to do regarding climate finance. As part of the previous Copenhagen Conference of the Parties, COP, there was a commitment that developed countries would generate $100 billion per year in climate finance by 2020. This may sound like an extremely large or aspirational figure, but it must be put in the context of subsidies to fossil fuel companies, which amount to approximately five times that. Ireland's fast start financing, which supports adaptation and resilience, totalled approximately $100 million between 2010 and 2012. This was new and additional to overseas aid but, since 2011, it has counted as part of our overseas aid. Our contributions to the $100 billion commitment should not result in commensurate reductions in our aid programme. In other words, this should not be an accounting or labelling exercise. The $100 billion is to be delivered internationally through the Green Climate Fund, GCF. The first period for generating funds to that is 2012 to 2018. Unfortunately, at the last COP in Lima, Ireland was one of only four countries that had not made any pledge to it. This was a source of some embarrassment and we were given a fossil of the day "award", that is, when environmental organisations during negotiations single out the worst performing countries. This slide shows the delivery of our "award". By the end of that COP, the other three countries - Belgium, Austria and Australia - had made pledges.

In 2015, we did not provide any contribution to the fund. However, there was a pledge of €2 million as part of the 2016 budget. The committee may see this as a positive and believe that we have taken a step in the right direction, but the €2 million is insufficient and dwarfed by the pledges and contributions - what is actually delivered - of other EU member states of the same capacity and population. We have not made a pledge for subsequent years that is in line with similarly developed countries.

I discussed the EU context, but how will Ireland deliver these funds? As part of our Stop Climate Chaos coalition, NGOs have done a great deal of research into what is the best approach. One of our recommendations is for a separate fund to be established to ensure that financing is new and additional. This was also recommended in 2013 by the Joint Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht. To generate these revenues, we recommend using the carbon tax or emission trading revenues. There is precedence for this, in that a similar fund was set up in Scotland.

Mr. Clarken gave an overview of climate impacts and the case for climate justice. Our response needs to be done on the basis of climate justice. It is clear that the effects of climate change are undermining human rights in developing countries and that Ireland's response is insufficient.

To summarise our final recommendations, which we hope that the committee can advance, Ireland needs to make a significantly increased pledge, by which I mean ten or 20 times the existing pledge, to the GCF in line with our capacity and what other member states have done. This can be generated through the establishment of a climate justice fund. At EU level, Ireland needs to support ways in which climate finance can be generated, namely, the auctioning of emissions rights. To mitigate and reduce emissions, we must finalise and implement the mitigation plan as soon as possible under the climate Bill and take action on our existing commitments on policy coherence.

I thank the committee. I have set out a lot of information for it to consider.

Chairman

That is okay, and I thank Mr. Mac Evilly for his comprehensive presentation on the challenges that we face and for highlighting the importance of the meeting in Paris.

Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan

What the witnesses have presented has been frightening and alarming, in particular where it relates to Ireland. I am conscious of our role in human rights, for example, our membership of the UN Human Rights Council and our overseas development aid, ODA. We give with one hand, but it is obvious that we are taking with the other hand. Does it suit us to do that? Unfortunately, we will have an election in 2016 and do not know what will happen afterwards or what the priorities will be.

Mr. Mac Evilly mentioned subsidies to fossil fuel companies. I would like to hear more about those. Policy coherence is vital, yet we are not making the necessary commitments to it. What are the priorities in that regard? We received a commitment to climate justice, but is it translating into actions that will make a difference?

I apologise, as I must be somewhere else shortly. I will listen.

Deputy Eric Byrne

I left for the Oireachtas an hour and a half earlier this morning than normal. I have never seen weather like it. The way from Terenure to town was nearly all flooded by the rainfall. I apologise for being late, as I am normally on time. I congratulate the witnesses on their contributions and will ask a question. Climate change affects Africa severely. What is the up-to-date position of Ethiopia? It was our pride and joy. Visits were made and politicians were impressed by what was developing there. I understand that it has a population of approximately 90 million and a catastrophic crisis is about to begin. Have the witnesses information in this regard?

My pet subject is beginning to evolve in my brain. Do the witnesses address the issue of the contribution that we as human beings make by way of our numbers? A population of 90 million is a lot for such a food insecure area. Should we tackle the issue of family planning or argue that we are having too many children? Should some countries consider their reproduction rates in the family system more carefully?

We do not want to see more starving, pot-bellied children on the African continent. I was informed and reassured at this committee on various occasions that there was an early warning system to ensure there would never be a recurrence of these events. Am I being alarmist or worrying too much about Ethiopia? How much does overpopulation contribute to the degradation of the landmass?

Senator Mark Daly

I thank the witnesses for attending. I was delighted to request that they come in before the Paris conference. I think they should come back in January to give us their analysis of what happens there. The holy alliance of the Pope and the Pentagon says this is one of the most important issues facing the world and the Pentagon says climate change is on a par with the threat of terrorism. We witnessed the tragic terrorist attacks in Paris last week. Between 1970 and 2010 half the mammals, birds and reptiles on the planet have disappeared. That is serious. It is very difficult to highlight to the public the enormity of this issue. It is bigger than the threat of nuclear warfare. While humanity had to prevent the latter from happening, it must also prevent what is happening in terms of climate change.

The witnesses asked about ending the use of fossil fuels by 2050 but there are silent actors who will try to prevent that from happening because people are making massive sums of money out of such fuels. How can we prevent those actors lobbying in Washington and Brussels to prevent what needs to be done? Our guests outlined the consequences of that to which I refer, saying that this is the world’s life support system and that there is a threat to life involved. It is not just a question of climate change. Life expectancy in China has dropped by five years because of air pollution. According to an article in today’s Irish Independent, if this is not checked, an extra 25,000 will die because of climate change. Some articles about the Paris conference made the point that it will decide who lives and who dies. It is not a question of being optimistic or pessimistic but determined. The National Geographic Society has joined the Pope and the Pentagon in saying this is what needs to be done. The 2% target the witnesses have outlined means that we go into the law of unforeseen outcomes but what will happen is highly predictable. Once beyond the tipping point, there is no going back. It is a long way to 2050 to reach that target.

There are things Ireland can do, particularly in respect of farming. In a presentation to this committee, Mr. Eamon Ryan said 80% of fossil fuels that we know of today must stay in the ground. Given that people make billions of dollars out of the oil industry, it will take a serious effort to keep that in the ground. That analysis must be done. This committee should reflect and in January learn what happened in Paris. Copenhagen was not good enough and we have to ensure this is top of this committee’s agenda because it affects us all.

Agriculture creates a huge emissions problem for Ireland but we are not turning it into something positive. In other countries the emissions are used to generate electricity and energy. That is where we should put our money, instead of wasting it on carbon credits and wind farms - a matter on which we could have another debate - and make the emissions an income generator.

Mr. Oisín Coghlan

I am grateful for the invitation, which is timely, and to talk about coming back when we know more about the outcomes is also very welcome. I will respond to Deputy Maureen O’Sullivan’s question about Ireland’s role and how to counter the power of the fossil fuel industry in the upcoming policies. I will leave the question about Ethiopia to my development colleagues and others will touch on the population question. I will also speak about opportunities because it is not all sacrifice.

I spent ten years in the overseas aid and development community before my ten years with Friends of the Earth and have studied Ireland’s role from both sides of that coalition. I was conscious when I moved to Friends of the Earth of Ireland’s proud record on overseas aid. At the time, in 2005, before the recession, we were the sixth most generous country in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD, development assistance committee, DAC, per capita, in overseas aid contributions. We were just below the top five club who were at the 0.7% of gross national income level. When I came to this job I made a calculation that no one in Ireland had made before and discovered that in the same peer group we were the sixth most climate polluting country per capita. It seemed unreconcilable over time, otherwise we would be giving with one hand and taking with the other. Recently, I returned to those figures because I knew that we had essentially met our Kyoto targets, through the impact of the recession more than policy. We have dropped in aid to eighth place in the OECD DAC per capita and because our emissions have fallen we are now eighth in the peer group for climate-changing pollution emissions per capita. There is not much of an improvement. In terms of objective reality Ireland still has this - "schizophrenia" was mentioned earlier but that may be too strong - contradiction in its approach to, and policy on, climate change. We have not squared that circle yet and the mitigation plan that is hopefully coming out next year has to do that.

I have a fear about our approach to climate diplomacy, which is relevant to this committee. We have a particular emissions profile where agriculture plays a large role, more so than in other European countries. For years, Ireland considered that and other issues such as peat and coal and Moneypoint and so on. We have looked for ways to bring down emissions and had plans to do it, unlike now when we have no plan. I am fearful of our approach now, watching how this Government has acted in recent years although it is about to bring a climate change Bill over the line. This is the fourth environment Minister I have watched make this effort. It will happen before the Paris meeting, which is good and significant, but it will be just a framework and will not include measures for dealing with emissions.

We have watched the real concerted effort across Departments, which we had hoped would focus on actual solutions, but instead aims at a diplomatic effort to get Ireland off the hook of its 2020 targets under the EU, which are being renounced because they came from the last Government as if they were somehow wrongly calculated and an effort to obtain easier targets for 2030. This comes across as Irish exceptionalism, as in "We are special and different and should not have to make the same effort as everybody else". We would state that this comes across as saying we should not have to do our fair share. A lay person hearing the messages from the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government and the Taoiseach, who have intervened in this debate, would say that it sounds like Ireland should not act and the current targets are not good for us. The Taoiseach has spoken at European level about Ireland's being screwed if the targets set for 2030 are proportionately the same as those for 2020 and that this would be catastrophic for the Irish economy.

Normally we hear such words about climate change when talking about its impact. The overall targets for Europe are not adequate to the science. Therefore, when one country is speaking about its targets as being catastrophic, the message to its people and to Europe is that it does not want to act in a way which is commensurate with the issue.

We have particular challenges but everyone has particular challenges. The Germans could say - well, they could have said - Germany produces the best, most climate efficient cars in the world so if the Chinese middle class wants new cars it should buy German cars. We are saying the same about beef and dairy products. Of course, food is different, and we can discuss it in more detail, but this approach comes across as seeking not to act. The risk is that if every country adopts this approach, we will not get anywhere near a deal commensurate with the challenge.

This approach is an issue for us because it is an inappropriate way of going about climate diplomacy. It is also ineffective from a strategic game theory perspective. Ireland is not getting the traction it hoped it would get at an EU level. Huge efforts went into getting particular wording in the European Council conclusions last October. It was trumpeted by Ireland as a success because it did two things. It gave special recognition to land use and agriculture, which would pan out in how the European target was applied to different countries. It also recognised, in obtuse language, that it would look again at each individual country's target based on its GDP. Our GDP is higher than our GNP. The question was, therefore, what is our real capacity to act. These were taken by the Government as two very significant moves by the EU. Now our understanding is that it is not clear that those rhetorical assurances are panning out in real policy changes as Europe gears up next year to adopt national targets under whatever comes out of the upcoming meeting in Paris.

One analogy is the concession we got at the European Council level with regard to the recapitalisation of the banks and breaking the link between sovereign debt and bank debt, which was trumpeted at the time. It is much more difficult in practice to get it applied. In that case it was, exceptionally, retrospective as well. In this case, the concession would be prospective. However, applying a special treatment to one country opens a can of worms for the Commission and the European Council. Our understanding is that there is a significant push back. Officials inside government are now worried that because we are not meeting our 2020 target and not on track to meet it, we are facing potential non-compliance costs, namely, fines or costs for buying credits overseas. These costs could run into multi-billions of euro over the course of the decade from 2020 to 2030. This is not just for farm emissions but transport emissions as well because we have not broken the link between economic activity and emissions.

There is also a push-back from the European Commission because Ireland's approach has been quite confrontational. We are saying we are different, the last targets were unfair and that we should not have targets which are commensurately proportionate for 2030. The approach has been quite pushy. While it achieved some traction rhetorically, there is now a push-back in practice. I fear an analogy can be drawn between this and how Ireland dealt with the troika versus how Syriza dealt with the troika. Ireland seems to be ignoring its own lessons. In the case of the troika, Ireland complied but then asked for changes along the way and got them. The argument would be that significant gains were made. Syriza rejected on principle the way it was being done and, as we know, faced an even stiffer challenge. Ireland's approach to climate change at the European level is much more like Syriza's approach to the troika than that of Ireland. I worry that our climate diplomacy is not and will not be effective and will come back to bite us. The calculations of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Department of Finance suggest the approach runs significant financial risk.

Our analysis is that Ireland is not even trying to meet its 2020 targets. The narrative is, "we said they were too high and too difficult and we cannot meet them". The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government recently said that we cannot meet our 2020 targets, even though, as an NGO, we do not think the targets are particularly high. Therefore, the attitude adopted is not "we must try harder" but rather "we should be given easier targets for 2030". With regard to climate justice, our overseas reputation and our effort in the sustainable development goals and so on in terms of coherence, it would be much more appropriate and effective if we were being seen to act as much as possible on transport, retrofitting our houses, farming and energy. There has been some movement in the area of energy at least. If we were seen to be as effective as possible in such areas, then when we say we have a particular challenge in agriculture and are different, we would get a much more sympathetic hearing and a much fairer, more realistic, more practical and proportionate deal in Europe on our climate actions.

Chairman

I will first call Deputy Olivia Mitchell and then Mr. Coghlan might answer all the questions together.

Deputy Olivia Mitchell

I thank Mr. Coghlan for that interesting political analysis. Many of my questions have been answered already. I do not think anyone now doubts that climate change is happening notwithstanding the fact that this morning's weather was not that much different to typical Irish weather. If one goes to places such as Africa, one sees that once arable soil is now dust. One thing that is really telling is the shrinking of the lakes. It is frightening to see how much they have shrunk.

To discuss Ireland's situation, which is Mr. Coghlan's purpose in attending today, I wonder if it is a valid comparison when he says our emissions are so much higher per capita than India or China. I appreciate emissions per capita is a good way to measure emissions and changes in emissions over time but I am not sure that it is fair to compare us with countries such as China and India. However, that is neither here nor there.

Mr. Mac Evilly's presentation looked at the three strands of policy and so on. Two of the strands were all about money, and I accept that is the case, but we have to acknowledge that we high levels of debt in Ireland. Our heart is in the right place, we do what we can and we will continue to do what we can. I feel that is cross-party and not something just for this Government.

What do the witnesses really expect in terms of mitigation measures? Mr. Coghlan has covered the issue to some extent. Is it realistic that we would get out of fossil fuels by 2050? What is the big ticket item that will replace fossil fuels without a major change in people's psyche, never mind Government policy and so on? What will happen? What level of technological breakthrough do we need to achieve something like that?

On farming, Mr. Coghlan was saying to sign up to the targets and then look for concessions. Is that realistic? We are a special case in the sense that we cannot grow grapes. Even though we might not have a bigger farming sector than many European countries, the reality is we cannot grow grapes. We keep cows. What is the alternative? How can we damage such a big industry yet still be able to contribute to development aid and all the other things required of us? It is a big question.

There is the undoubted role of big powers such as oil development corporations, which certainly are a lot cleverer than the rest of us, and what they will do to try to fool us on and so on. How do we change people's minds? How do we change the minds of Governments? How do we convince people that we have to make that big leap? What is the big leap?

Senator Michael Mullins

I thank the witnesses for their fine presentations. A depressing picture was painted. We should all be much more worried about this issue than we are. We all know that Governments react to pressure from citizens. Given the picture painted, why is this so far down the political agenda? Why are ordinary citizens not putting more pressure on governments to respond more positively to the goals about which we speak?

Is it because they fear meeting more demanding targets will cost ordinary citizens more by way of carbon tax or other taxes? Is that the reason climate change is so far down the political agenda in Ireland? How do we change that? If we do not, and if we do not get the temperature increases below 2°, the world's people are facing a very uncertain future with much hunger and poverty. Are we over-estimating the impact that 4.5 million people have in the overall equation?

Chairman

I have a question too, after which you can answer all of the questions. We have another 20 minutes, which is not bad. Regarding CO2 and our carbon emissions, there is one coal burning station in Ireland at Moneypoint. That is the main problem we have with CO2 emissions at present and we must decide what we can do about it.

To take up Deputy Mitchell's point about the per capita CO2 emissions, in China it is 3.8 as opposed to Ireland's 10.5. However, China is building coal burning power stations at a rate of one almost every three weeks at present. Where do big countries that are being heavily industrialised and polluted fit into the equation? This applies to India as well. Coal is the cheapest form of energy at present but it has most CO2 emissions. There is an abundant supply of coal throughout the world and there are enough supplies for another 150 years. Have we examined taking the CO2 out of coal? That would go a long way in helping us to reach our targets.

Ms Anja Murray

One over-arching theme should come through here, whether we are going to meet these enormous challenges. The IPCC fifth assessment report states clearly that there must be deep and fundamental changes to business as usual if we are to keep warming below a 2° threshold. That is what we must do.

There is a worrying theme through some of the responses here with regard to the contribution of 4.5 million people, the coal, agriculture and what else we are going to grow. We will not achieve anything in responding to climate change if we do not start to put a collective global common good before a short-term national interest. I have been alarmed that Ireland's response has been about a short-term national interest. In particular, the focus of all of our negotiations in the past couple of months, if not longer, has been about finding a concession for agriculture. Agriculture is a very important sector in the Irish economy. It contributes approximately 7% of our GDP; it is 2.6% with respect to primary agriculture. It also accounts for approximately 10% of Irish exports. Most of those exports go to the UK and other European countries.

We must look again at the polluter pays principle. We have seen the quote from Ban Ki-moon and there are incitements to change our behaviour and systems from people such as Mary Robinson, President Higgins and Pope Francis. They are not talking about seeking concessions for Irish agriculture, as this is just free-loading on the efforts of other countries that are making cuts to emissions. We need an overall cut to emissions. We will overshoot our targets and that is largely attributed to the impact of agriculture. The general taxpayer will pay for that, whether it is through purchase of credits or fines.

That is an unacceptable situation. I realise there is a good case to be made, but if one zooms out a little and looks at the ethics of the situation and whether we will achieve our emissions reduction targets and play our role fairly, as we have done for so long with regard to aid and development, seeking concessions for one sector is not ethically acceptable. I will leave the other questions to other members of my group.

Mr. Oisín Coghlan

I will reply on the practical questions raised. There are two aspects to the issue of China. It is still building coal-fired power stations, only it is doing so less fast than it was. It is also now the largest investor in renewables in the world. It is taking pollution very seriously because it is seeing the local impact of local air pollution. The biggest difference between Copenhagen in 2009 and Paris this year is that there have been two big deals in the past year between President Obama and President Xi Jinping in advance of this conference. The two biggest polluters in the world are showing some degree of leadership on it. China is taking action and has committed to peak and reduce its emissions towards 2030. China has been used as an excuse in the US and was raised in the media here as well. People asked what the point was if China was not moving, but China is moving.

Indeed, one of the things it is doing is capturing much of the business opportunity. Germany is moving away from nuclear power and into renewables in a big way. It thought it would build the solar panels but it was out-competed by the Chinese. The Germans own much of the renewable energy; local people own 51% of it, not big companies. However, it is mainly Chinese solar panels. The investment by German taxpayers in subsidised solar energy has driven change in both Germany and China. We must also acknowledge that much of the Chinese manufacturing is for our consumption. One can no longer cite China as a reason for the other countries not acting.

With regard to 4.5 million people, nobody is asking Ireland to do more than its fair share. We are the fourth highest per capita in the EU, so that is another way of looking at our peer groups.

There was a question about whether we can get off fossil fuels by 2050 and how we cope with the power of the industry. Countries such as Sweden, Finland and Denmark have set that fossil-free target for themselves for 2050. It is possible and there are models for how it can be done and what it involves. The technology is evolving. A solar panel in Ireland will get 80% of the impact of a solar panel in Madrid because of our long daylight hours. However, there is no payment for having one for electricity generation. That is one change we must see here. Solar has potential, as does anaerobic digestion. Obviously, wave and tidal power have possibilities. The biggest, easiest win is in retrofitting our homes and reducing our need for heating in our homes. Down the line there are electric vehicles combined with storing the renewable power that is generated. Almost all of the reductions we need can be done with existing technology. It is a question of deployment and change, and not getting locked into new investments in fossil-intensive power.

On the power of the fossil fuel industry, there are some changes. Rather than campaigners focusing mainly on the high level issues, as we are here today and will be in Paris, or even the semi-abstract content of a climate Bill, more public attention and focus is going on fossil fuel infrastructure. President Obama made a big decision a couple of weeks ago not to build the Keystone XL pipeline from the tar sands in Canada, the most polluting source of oil, for the oil to be refined in the US. He did not think it was economically useful, given how things are going, or climate appropriate. It is the first time a country has rejected major infrastructure because of its impact on climate change. That is leadership from the US, but we must see it more generally. Ireland will face decisions about peat, Moneypoint and fracking in the future. Do we go down the energy efficiency and renewables path or the fossil path? It is the choices we make. It will not be one big thing, just many choices.

There was a question about taking the CO2 out of coal. There is a lot of talk, particularly from the coal-producing states in the US, about clean coal and the potential of carbon capture and storage, CCS. That process involves putting something at the end of the tailpipe, sucking out the CO2 and storing it underground, often in old gas fields. It is potentially possible and there is no harm in researching it, but there is no sign of it happening as yet. The UK has given particular concessions to gas-fired power stations that were CCS-ready, which meant, in the case of Drax or one of the other large stations, having an empty space on the site so that when the technology came along, there would be somewhere to put it. Beyond that, however, we are not very close to progress in this area. We certainly cannot use the potential of CCS as a reason not to act. We must act now, and perhaps in 2030 or 2040, or whenever CCS comes on stream, we can make use of it.

Mr. Jim Clarken

I will try to cover some of the questions that have not been addressed. Deputy Eric Byrne referred to the situation in Ethiopia, which is a major concern for us all. That country has made tremendous strides in the past ten, 15 or 20 years, but the whole region is now facing a food crisis. We must ensure Ethiopia is supported now, when it is struggling, after a period of doing so well. We all recall the darkest days for the country and how far it has progressed. The situation in Ethiopia is a watching brief and we are working with partners there to see what can be done. Of course, Ethiopia is affected by the conflict in South Sudan. There is a regional issue that needs to be addressed, with a greater focus on pushing the parties involved to come to a resolution.

The population question is something of a perennial for some of us, specifically in the context of climate impact. To respond in a personal way, I have three children under the age of five and it is fair to say they probably have already used more carbon than their counterparts in developing countries. Certainly, through the course of their lifetimes, they will, with the best efforts of their parents and our society, use multiples of what people in developing countries use. It is the parents and grandparents of children in Ireland today, and previous generations, who are the cause of the climate impact on countries like Ethiopia, not the Ethiopian people themselves or the fact that more Ethiopian children are being born. There is an inevitability in terms of where the population trajectory is heading in the next 20 or 25 years. We can do nothing about that but we must push for better levels of education in developing countries, particularly for girls and women. We need to ensure girls stay in school longer, space their children better and have fewer of them. There is nothing more definite than that when one has middle classes in a society, people will have smaller, better educated and more protected families. It is really about the need for poverty alleviation rather than blaming population increases. That is an important message to get across.

In his analysis of the threat of nuclear power, Senator Mark Daly wondered whose lives will be saved and whose will not. Those are very strong lines and I am glad the Senator is using them because that is how serious this issue is. As Senator Michael Mullins said, for some reason we have not quite captured that imagination yet. There is a great deal of activity going on in this area. For example, a large protest march is planned for Paris and a stepping up of public engagement. Many of us have been engaging with the public on these issues for years. Lots of people, for several generations, have been hugely passionate about them, and more and more are taking the concerns on board. People are joining the dots and getting more involved. The flip side to this is that action requires leadership as opposed to followership, which in turn requires courage and doing things even if they are not yet on the popular agenda. It is a question of working together to find out what we can do to mobilise people and how we can collectively ensure they are fully engaged.

Deputy Olivia Mitchell spoke about Ireland's share or part in bringing about change. It is about equity, fairness and justice. Nobody is asking Ireland to do any more than what is proportionate to its share. During the worst of the economic crisis, the aid budget was cut by 35% or so. In the past five years, however, it was more or less kept steady. That required political leadership, and we should give credit where it is due. The public was not clamouring for the level of aid to be retained but the political leadership decided it was important enough to do. Equally, this is important enough to do and it requires that kind of leadership. I am absolutely convinced the public will come along with us on this. People are becoming more and more aware of the impact climate change is having not just somewhere far away but in our own country today, in the course of their lifetime and in their children's lifetime. That is something we need to work on together.

Chairman

I will allow Deputy Durkan to contribute before going to the other witnesses.

Deputy Bernard J. Durkan

Thank you, Chairman. I apologise for missing the start of the meeting. Unfortunately, I had a clashing event to attend. I am not convinced there is a groundswell of support to tackle climate change such as Mr. Clarken described. Those of us who have for several years been giving the leadership he referred to find ourselves facing assassination from all sides. I have to attend a public meeting tomorrow night to explain why I am supporting wind energy and other initiatives. There is a lot of money being spent to ensure I am convinced otherwise. However, I remain committed to recognising the need to respond to climate change and was formerly a party spokesman in that area.

Agriculture in this country represents a major part of the economy and was instrumental in the economic recovery we experienced in the past four or five years. Without it, as well as the pharmaceutical and IT sectors, we would not be where we are now. It is 90% indigenous - that is, generated locally and 85% export-led. In other words, a minimum of 85% of all the agricultural produce made here is exported. It is a huge part of our economy and it must be protected. There is a variety of ways to do that, including via alternative energy. I am not and never was in favour of nuclear energy. There are dangers to it, as we saw not too long ago with the Fukushima event.

A final wrap-up.

Mr. Oisín Coghlan

I will be very brief. I am not sure support from me on wind energy is useful to Deputy Durkan, but I recognise the challenges he has been facing. It is a debate we engage in frequently in public and private with people to find ways to involve communities positively in looking for solutions. I recognise the challenges the Deputy faces.

On the question of whether there is a groundswell for action more generally, politicians have been saying to us for years that climate change does not come up on the doorsteps. I take their word for it, but our response - and I do not mean it tritely - is that banking regulation did not come up on the doorsteps in 2002 or even in 2007. The challenge for leaders, as people with a far greater awareness of what is going on than people who are struggling through the challenges of daily life, is to take on board the evidence of an overheating planet, as evidence of an overheating economy should have been taken on board, and to act on behalf of all of us.

Mr. Jerry Mac Evilly

Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan referred to policy coherence. One recommendation of ours is that the committee could examine the issue of policy coherence. Deputy Durkan referred to biomass and biofuels, and those are issues we have concerns about. We ask that those matters be taken forward also. In relation to Ireland's emissions being perhaps irrelevant in the context of the big players, while they may be small in comparison with the biggest countries, it does not change the fact that our harmful emissions contribute and will contribute to damaging climate change. It also goes back to the point about exceptionalism. This is also true of a lot of other smaller developed countries and it is an issue of responsibility, as the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, has stated.

As to why this is not high on people's agendas, it is probably not understood that this is a human rights issue. It is affecting food security in the developing world. By 2025, two thirds of Africa may be subject to water stress, with similar pressures on crop production. With that in mind, we are making recommendations on mitigation which Ireland needs to put in place. It is not about putting pressure on an individual industry, but about a mitigation plan across all sectors.

Deputy Olivia Mitchell asked about Ireland being subject to financial pressures. That is precisely why we have recommendations as to how climate finance can be generated. In other words, it is about finding new mechanisms to generate those funds.

Mr. Jim Clarken

On behalf of the group, I thank the committee for a really helpful debate and for having us here. This is a critical discussion and we have taken a great deal from it in terms of what members are hearing and where they are coming from. That is important to us and it influences the way we can help. I thank the members for their commitment. We look forward to following matters up, hopefully after some positive news from Paris.

Chairman

It was a very lively debate and I am sure there is a great deal more to be said. After Paris, we will try to reconvene all the major NGO players again, if we are still here, to continue this very important debate which is determining our future. We wish the witnesses well in Paris and thank them for the presentation.

Senator Daly proposed that the committee ask the Irish Abroad unit to come before a meeting to discuss a report on an Irish consular service in Australia prepared by the Irish Australian Chamber of Commerce.

Senator Mark Daly

The main proposal was to appoint honorary consulates in Australia as there are in Canada. It will come as no surprise that the question was not answered. This is my warning to the officials. The motion will be down again next week when the Minister is in.

Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade díospóireacht - Wednesday, 18 Nov 2015

COP21: Discussion

Mr. Jim Clarken

Mr. Jerry Mac Evilly

Mr. Oisín Coghlan

Ms Anja Murray

Mr. Oisín Coghlan

Mr. Jim Clarken

Mr. Oisín Coghlan

Mr. Jerry Mac Evilly

Mr. Jim Clarken

Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 18 Nov 2015