World at a 'decisive moment' on how it acts on climate change, Cop30 hears

Mr Martin said that Ireland stood ready to play its part on climate change, and change is underway across its economy to steer Ireland to a decarbonised future. Picture: Leah Farrell / © RollingNews.ie

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said he is concerned that the “spirit of common purpose is weakening” when it comes to climate change, and that countries fail their citizens by not telling them the truth about it.

At the leaders summit at the UN's climate change Cop30 conference in Belém, Brazil, Mr Martin said the world is at a “decisive moment” in how it acts on climate change.

“Our attention is being drawn to other threats and crises that can seem more pressing,” he said. 

“Geopolitical turbulence. Economic pressure. Conflict and dislocation. All have been presented as reasons to ease or delay action.

“But increasingly, the challenges we face arise because of climate change, and this will worsen with time. At a time when political leadership has never been more vital, there are fewer of us here in Belém, fewer leaders ready to tell it as it is.” 

Mr Martin said that Ireland stood ready to play its part on climate change, and change is underway across its economy to steer Ireland to a decarbonised future.

The Taoiseach was speaking at the key climate summit almost a decade on from the Paris Agreement, where countries had united in a bid to try to put the brakes on global warming and limit its devastating impacts.

However, in the years that followed, US president Donald Trump has twice pulled his country out of the Paris Agreement, and notable absences at this year’s Cop include Mr Trump and China’s president Xi Jinping.

'Moral failure'

During the opening session, UN secretary general António Guterres said the failure to limit global heating to 1.5C is a “moral failure and deadly negligence”.

He was speaking after the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) warned it will become “virtually impossible” to limit global warming to 1.5C in the next few years without temporarily overshooting the target.

The Paris Agreement had set out a global effort to keep global warming under 2C above pre-industrial levels and striving to stay below 1.5C. Scientists say it is crucial to keep global warming below these levels.

Speaking to heads of state from more than 30 nations, Mr Guterres called the target of limiting global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels a “red line” for a habitable planet. He urged his audience to bring about a “fundamental paradigm shift” so that the effects of the overshoot could be minimised.

“Every fraction of a degree higher means more hunger, more displacement, more economic hardship, and more lives and ecosystems lost,” he said.

“Each year above 1.5C will hammer economies, deepen inequalities, and inflict irreversible damage — with developing countries that did least to cause it hit hardest."

The WMO also said that the “alarming streak” of exceptional temperatures has continued this year, with 2025 set to be either the second or third warmest year on record.

Its secretary general, Celeste Saulo, added that the science “is equally clear that it’s still entirely possible and essential to bring temperatures back down to 1.5C by the end of the century”.

In her address to leaders, she added: “We can’t rewrite the laws of physics, but we can rewrite our path.”

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