Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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52. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment his plans to help achieve a timeframed process for the delivery of climate finance to communities most in need; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41336/24]

Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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This question relates to climate finance. COP29 is being termed in some quarters as the finance COP. We have big work to do in terms of setting the new collective quantified goal. I ask for a sense of the direction our climate finance will be taking domestically and how we propose to direct it to communities most in need as well as how we propose to influence the direction travel of climate finance not just here in Ireland but at COP.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Ireland’s all-of-government international climate finance roadmap, published in July 2022, sets out the strategy for achieving our international climate finance targets, which involve more than doubling our funding for developing countries to €225 million annually by 2025. This commitment was made in 2021 by my colleague the Tánaiste at COP26 in Glasgow. Since 2020, we have more than doubled our climate finance. Ireland’s 2023 climate finance expenditure is expected to be confirmed as totalling more than €156 million, in 2024 will likely exceed €181 million and next year we will meet the target of €225 million on schedule.

We recognises that vulnerable countries which have contributed least to the climate crisis are suffering the most from its impacts. The geographic focus of our funding is on less developed countries and small island states in particular. The thematic priorities of the roadmap centre on strengthening climate resilience and adaptation. About 80% of our climate finance goes to adaptation, which is what the developing countries want. It is 100% grant funded and is not tied, not commercial and not based on loans; it is real support. The principles outlined in the roadmap include a focus on leaving no one behind and on gender-sensitive and locally led climate action.

Our climate finance contributes to the meeting of the current $100 billion goal. The forthcoming COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, is expected to deliver an agreement on a new collective quantified goal to replace the previous goal. The negotiations are going to be difficult, and it is far from certain that we will get agreement. Any agreement must involve agreement on how we advance climate adaptation, how we get Article 6 provisions in place so that we can get funding for nature, as well as how we get transparency in accounting and reporting systems in the international energy and minerals system in order that we avoid a trade war on climate and, more important than anything else, how we bring climate and development together for climate justice, which is at the centre of the Government's approach and position.

Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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I congratulate the Minister on his appointment to a very key role at COP29, namely a senior COP presidency role co-leading negotiations on climate adaptation. While that is somewhat tangential to what we are discussing here, it is also very closely related. One of my key concerns relates to how we treat climate finance, the €225 million that we are making available and the need to keep that separate from our overseas development aid. We should make it supplemental to overseas development aid and not be counting both things twice and together, because we do great work with that. The other issue is about direction. Ireland is very good in terms of focusing it climate finance on the principles of locally led adaptation. We can unlock all sorts of co-benefits by investing directly in communities and building capacity within communities. I would like to see that teased out more. I would also like to see us having an influence on the direction of travel of other countries in the context of how they direct their climate finance flows.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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This is very rare, but I disagree with the Deputy. Climate finance is overseas development aid. It fits absolutely within international definitions as well as the rules and spirit of what overseas development aid is about. It is about protecting the most vulnerable. It is, as the Deputy said, bottom up. It is about building resilience. We are good at it in this country because we have a culture and tradition going right back to our missionaries in Africa and elsewhere. We have learned over decades how to actually work with, listen to, inspire and be inspired by local leadership. I appreciate the Deputy's kind words regarding my role in Baku as a ministerial pair. Just to explain, I will not be working for the EU in that context but for the UN process. I will be working with Costa Rica, which is a developing country. The job is to try to get agreement and understanding. The area we are working on is that of adaptation, which, for the developing poorest countries, is the most important aspect. Included in that is getting finance for adaptation and getting the characteristics that I just described stitched into the international agreement. That is what we will look to do, to improve on the lessons that we have learned as a country that is good on climate adaptation finance, and to spread the word.

Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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I am sure we can amiably agree to disagree on this point. I want to chase that 0.7% goal that we have set out. I know we are chasing a moving target in that our GDP is increasing and we have substantially, in real numbers, very much increased the type of funding we are making available through overseas development aid and climate finance. That said, I would like to keep the accounting separate, even if they add up to reach somewhere close to that 0.7% target, which is the North star that we need to be heading towards.

The other issue we need to consider in this space is the mosaic of funding that is often spoken about. Public money needs to be used to lead and to do the heavy lifting to de-risk private and philanthropic sources that will hopefully come in later. The quantum of funding that is required to meaningfully engage in climate finance is beyond the reach of public money, even with those very ambitious goals and that new collective quantified goal that we are hoping to see increased ambition on. I would reiterate that the local focus that the Government is pursuing in conjunction with the US is well worth developing. We know the co-benefits that go along with it.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I agree with the Deputy's latter point. Public finance will be important, but it is going to be challenging because we in the developed world have to extend more and there should also be a broadening of contributors to that. We should be very careful here. Last Friday, I spoke to one of the leaders of one of the African states who is a real expert and a brilliant leader in the area. He said that he wants private finance. He said that private finance is key but that Africa cannot get private finance. I will give an example. Last Friday, the International Renewable Energy Agency published data on the new renewables revolution that is taking place, showing that 473 GW of new renewable power was built last year but only 2.7 GW of that went to Africa. I agree that we need public finance but we absolutely need private finance too for a whole variety of different issues. That mosaic or layering of finance does not absolve developed countries of the obligation to help in public ways but we actually need to focus on getting private finance too. If we do not get that, we will not get the $1.5 trillion per year that we need to spend in developing countries, other than China. Private finance is also key here.