Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)

I thank the Cathaoirleach and members of the committee for inviting me to discuss COP29, which is scheduled to commence in Baku, Azerbaijan, in less than three weeks. I recently attended the pre-COP meetings in Baku, during which I was honoured to be formally announced by the COP29 presidency as one half of the ministerial pairing leading negotiations on adaptation. I thank the Chair for mentioning that. Ministerial pairings are made up of one minister from a developed country and one from a developing country who work together to facilitate negotiations on key issues. I will be working with my counterpart from Costa Rica, Franz Tattenbach, the Minister of Environment and Energy.

As the members will all know, adaptation is an increasingly urgent issue and endeavour that deals with the actions required to adjust to the present and future impacts of climate change like flooding, sea level rises or extreme heat, bush fires or desertification, which are now annual occurrences across the globe and, indeed, much closer to home as well. Ireland has a very strong track record on adaptation in our climate and development work with small island developing states and least developed countries. Unusually, approximately 80% of our climate finance is directed to projects which solely or in part contribute to adaptation action. This is a record to be proud of. Ireland was also prominent in the establishment of a fund for responding to loss and damage and shares a seat on that fund’s board. This track record gives us real credibility when we are engaging with our global partners on adaptation.

While I will be working to facilitate the negotiations on adaptation, as part of the overall progress towards a strong COP outcome, I will also remain active as part of the European Union team. On 14 October, I attended a meeting of the environment configuration of the Council in Luxembourg, where we agreed the EU’s ambitious negotiating mandate for this COP. I have provided a copy of these Council conclusions to the committee for its information.

The headline item for COP29 will be the negotiations on a new collective quantified goal, the NCQG. The NCQG will replace the current collective goal of developed countries to mobilise $100 billion per year in climate finance, which was first committed to at COP15. The OECD has been tracking delivery of this goal and has confirmed that it was reached in 2022, when some $115 billion was mobilised. From 2025 onwards, the NCQG will replace this goal.

The NCQG outcome must be fit for purpose, ambitious, achievable and respond to the challenge at hand, requiring us all to speed up the global transformation towards net zero and climate-resilient economies. Much of these negotiations will turn on two major issues, namely, how much will the new goal be and who will be contributing to it. On the first issue, it is clear that the amounts needed to address climate change globally are considerable. On the energy transition alone, the International Energy Agency has estimated that there needs to be $4.3 trillion invested in clean energy annually up to 2030 if our targets are going to be met. It is not realistic or sustainable for this level of investment to come from public finance alone. The NCQG will need to be multilayered with public finance at its core but with a broader outer layer encompassing funding from multiple sources, instruments, channels and actors, both international and domestic. Innovative sources of finance, such as from the fossil fuel sector, should also be a part of this vital mosaic of solutions.

On the issue of the donor base, currently only a limited number of parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC, are required to contribute to climate finance, based on a list that has not changed since the early 1990s. Despite this, many parties have seen considerable economic growth in the intervening years that has, in some instances, been derived from or linked to fossil fuels. While developed countries will and should continue to take the lead in providing climate finance, broadening the contributor base to include some of these parties would demonstrate true global solidarity, improve the sustainability of the overall goal and help bridge the finance needs of the countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

Moving to mitigation, it is important that the momentum from COP28 is not wasted. The UAE consensus was a true milestone in the UNFCCC process. For the first time, a COP decision recognised the role fossil fuels play in contributing to climate change and parties committed to transitioning away from their use in energy systems. Ambitious targets were also set to triple renewable energy and double energy efficiency.

However, setting energy targets alone is not enough. COP29 must deliver an outcome that ensures the UAE consensus, including its energy targets, are followed up on and implemented.

A decision on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement is also expected to be a key deliverable of COP29. Article 6 will establish a process for the trading of carbon credits. It will mean countries will be able to meet their carbon neutrality targets through the buying of carbon credits from carbon avoidance or removal projects in other countries that are willing to transfer their achievements. Discussions on Article 6 have been ongoing for some time but I am hopeful there will be an outcome that ensures the system is effective, transparent and accountable and ensures the highest level of environmental integrity in the markets.

Ireland’s engagement at COP is a whole-of-government endeavour. I am proud to be leading the Irish delegation again this year. The delegation is made up of officials from across multiple Government Departments and a range of agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, Met Éireann and the Central Bank of Ireland, many of whom are working throughout the year on these critical issues. I thank the Cathaoirleach for the invitation today. I am happy to take any questions he or the members may have on our preparations for this COP.