Taoiseach's Cop27 speech seen as 'passionate', but funding pledge branded 'disappointing'

Wed, 09 Nov, 2022 - 02:37

Pádraig Hoare

There has been a mixed reaction to Taoiseach Micheál Martin's address to the Cop27 climate change summit in Egypt, with his "passionate" address welcomed, but funding offered to vulnerable countries slammed as too little.

Mr Martin pledged €10m to the Global Shield initiative for 2023, "to protect the most vulnerable from climate loss and damage".

The Global Shield fund comes following a meeting of the world's major G7 economies and the V20, made up of the world's most vulnerable countries to the effects of climate change. German chancellor Olaf Scholz, who chaired the meeting, pledged €170m to the Global Shield.

Ireland announced last year that it would ramp up its annual climate finance contribution to €225m by 2025, more than double what it had pledged up to then. Mr Martin told assembled world leaders in Sharm-el-Sheikh that "we will not see the change we need without climate justice".

"The burden of climate change globally is falling most heavily on those least responsible for our predicament... Our citizens will become increasingly cynical, weary and hopeless if words are not urgently matched by deeds, if commitments do not generate new realities.

"We can already see and feel the world around us changing. Temperatures in Ireland have been so mild this autumn that trees are producing new growth before they have even dropped their leaves. The situation is urgent, but it is not hopeless.

"When I spoke at Cop26 last year, I said I did not believe that it is too late; that the transition will be too costly; that it is inevitable that we will leave people behind. I believe it even more so now," he said.

My first video blog as I head into Day 2 of the #COP27 leader’s summit to watch @MichealMartinTD address the summit #UCCatCOP27 pic.twitter.com/eauza3ZBet
— Hannah Daly (@HannahEDaly) November 8, 2022

University College Cork (UCC) professor Hannah Daly, part of the delegation who met the Taoiseach in Egypt following his address, said he spoke "passionately" but cautioned that "words and ambitious targets are cheap, but action is hard".

She said: "Clearly, his meeting with leaders from countries who are already feeling its devastating damage left an impression - in Pakistan, 33 million people are displaced as a result of floods driven by climate change, and we know that this is only the beginning.

"I hope that when he returns from Cop27, the Taoiseach takes home the messages he has heard from those whose lives are being devastated from climate change, and along with pledging financial compensation to help alleviate the damage, address the nation directly on the urgency of action, with the same urgency that our political leadership demonstrated during the pandemic.

"Otherwise, we will yet again miss our targets and continue to be part of the problem, not the solution."

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Trócaire expressed disappointment in the €10 million pledged by the Taoiseach at Cop27, saying it was not new funding.

Head of policy, Siobhan Curran, who is attending Cop27, said the amount announced is coming out of existing climate finance funding, but loss and damage funding should be additional.

“Ultimately the Global Shield cannot be an alternative to a loss and damage finance facility and should not sideline efforts for the scale-up of financing needed," she said.

It is realistic for our legacy to be a sustainable planet, Micheál Martin tells Cop27