Eamon Ryan to co-chair meeting of International Energy Agency

Green Party leader Eamon Ryan. Mr Ryan takes over as co-chair of the IEA ministerial meeting from US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

Environment and Transport Minister Eamon Ryan has been appointed as a co-chair to the International Energy Agency's (IEA) meeting of global ministers next year.

The appointment is seen as a significant one for Mr Ryan, as it coincides with the Paris-based global energy monitoring body's 50th anniversary and also the end of the so-called "global stocktake" of progress on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its "synthesis report" from its sixth assessment cycle this month in order to inform the forthcoming UN global stocktake of climate change.

The stocktake is when countries will review progress towards the Paris Agreement goals of 2015, including the goal of keeping global warming to well below 2C, while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5C.

The 1.5C figure is considered the limit to stave off the very worst effects of climate change by scientists.

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres warned that the latest IPCC report is a "survival guide for humanity".

Sluggish response

The IPCC, a UN-backed body of global climate scientists including Maynooth University professor Peter Thorne, said there are multiple options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but progress has been marred by the sluggish pace of action in the past five years.

It said that more than a century of burning fossil fuels has led to global warming of 1.1C above pre-industrial levels, resulting in more frequent and more intense extreme weather events in every region of the world.

Every increment of warming results in rapidly escalating hazards, such as more intense heatwaves, heavier rainfall, and other weather extremes, while almost half of the world’s population lives in regions highly vulnerable to climate change, with deaths from floods, droughts, and storms 15 times higher in the last decade, the IPCC warned.

Dubai summit

Cop28, the annual climate change summit, will take place in Dubai in November, followed by the IEA ministerial meeting in Paris in February.

Mr Ryan takes over as co-chair of the IEA ministerial meeting from US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

Often embattled at home due to perceived gaffes from political opponents, Mr Ryan has in contrast commanded estimable respect on the international stage.

He was appointed as EU ministerial representative on so-called "loss and damage" to work alongside European Commission vice-president Frans Timmermans at the Cop27 climate change summit in Egypt last November.

Loss and damage — ostensibly richer countries paying a significant share to more vulnerable countries to compensate for the climate change-related disasters — looked unlikely until the last minute at the Sharm-el-Sheikh event, but Irish officials were praised for their negotiating role in a deal finally being struck.

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