Taoiseach to tell world leaders at COP30 Storm Éowyn showed 'climate change is a reality'
Storm Éowyn left 768,000 premises without power, more than 200,000 without water, more than one million telecom customers without broadband or phone coverage, and widespread agricultural damage.
The Taoiseach will today demand "political leadership" on climate change from his fellow world leaders, using Ireland's experience with Storm Éowyn to highlight how "climate change is a reality right now".
In a speech to the leaders at the COP30 climate summit, Micheál Martin will also claim Ireland is on target to increase international finance for climate measures to €225m this year, as it committed to do at COP26 in 2021.
However, the Taoiseach's speech in Belem, northern Brazil, will come as the European Union brings a much diluted climate agreement to the table, which was reached early on Wednesday following hurried negotiations.
That agreement has been roundly criticised for including “get out of jail free cards”, as scientists say temperatures continue to rise significantly, increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events.
On Thursday, the leaders’ summit gets under way at COP30, with the summit overshadowed both by a lack of sufficient progress in reducing emissions since the landmark Paris Agreement nearly a decade ago, and the staunch opposition to climate action signalled by the Trump administration in the United States.
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Mr Martin will draw on the record-breaking Storm Éowyn from early January in his speech, which brought sustained hurricane-force winds of 142km per hour.
It left 768,000 premises without power, more than 200,000 without water, more than one million telecom customers without broadband or phone coverage, and widespread agricultural damage.
It is understood the Fianna Fáil leader will also remind fellow leaders it is the "poorest and most vulnerable who suffer the worst impacts" of climate change, and will tell them it "is time for political leadership; the science is clear".
Mr Martin will tell leaders Ireland is reducing emissions despite population growth, but "there is more to do and we need to help citizens make the transition" and that Ireland "recognises that accessible climate finance is the key to achieving decarbonisation and climate resilience globally — especially for vulnerable countries".
Ireland may be hit with fines of up to €26bn for failing to meet its climate targets, but which Government department would pay is unclear, according to last month's Comptroller and Auditor General’s report.
The State is legally bound by Irish and EU legislation to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions by 51% by 2030 (relative to 2018 levels) and to be climate-neutral by 2050.
Current projections by the Environmental Protection Agency indicate that, even with the implementation of planned additional measures, emissions are expected to exceed the national target in 2030.
It all comes as EU climate ministers agreed a 2040 climate change target in the early hours of Wednesday, after watering down the goal in last-minute negotiations ahead of COP30.
The deal meant the EU would not go empty-handed to COP30, where European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen will meet other world leaders on Thursday.
After negotiating late into Tuesday night, climate ministers from European Union countries approved in a public vote a compromise to cut emissions 90% by 2040, from 1990 levels, but with flexibilities to weaken this aim.
The weakened target would let countries buy foreign carbon credits to cover up to 5% of the 90% emissions-cutting goal. That would effectively weaken to 85% the emissions cuts required from European industries, and pay foreign countries to cut emissions on Europe's behalf to make up the rest.
Environment minister Darragh O’Brien said Ireland had played a “constructive” role in reaching an EU climate target and said it had secured “text changes” to the final agreement, addressing concerns around agriculture and energy affordability and security.
However, director of the Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units group Professor Peter Thorne said it was an agreement that was “on the face of it ambitious, but with a get out-of-jail-free card written in".
“It’ll be paying other people to not emit so we can continue to emit,” he said. “There are huge issues of equity and justice wrapped up in it.”
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