Ireland is ready to play its part against global warming and will double the amount it gives in climate aid in the coming years, the taoiseach told the UN climate conference in Glasgow yesterday.
Micheál Martin said “immediate, large-scale” reductions in greenhouse gas emissions were essential and rich countries such as Ireland that had “contributed most to the problems that confront us all” had an obligation to support the poorest. He announced that by 2025 Ireland would double the amount it gives in climate aid to €225 million.
Speaking before the release of the climate action plan tomorrow that will set out emissions limits for every sector of the Irish economy, Martin said: “We do not believe or accept, as some would have it, that it is too late; that the transition will be too costly; that it is inevitable that we will leave people behind; that someone else should shoulder the load.
“Every second of delay makes our task that bit bigger. Let us leave Glasgow with a renewed commitment to doing what we know needs to be done.”
Oisín Coghlan, chief executive of Friends of the Earth, said the taoiseach’s remarks represented a “step change” in Irish political leadership on climate but added that “the real test will be the climate action plan later this week”. Given its large carbon footprint, the extent to which agriculture is required to decarbonise could determine whether the country’s emissions reduction goals remain within reach.
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Speaking on Morning Ireland on RTE Radio 1 yesterday, the taoiseach described as “scaremongering” a recent KPMG report for the Irish Farmers’ Journal which claimed 10,000 jobs could be lost if farming was required to cut emissions by 21 per cent. Environmentalists argue that at least a 30 per cent reduction is needed.
Trócaire welcomed the taoiseach’s climate aid announcement as representing “significant progress” towards Ireland’s fair share, but Coghlan said the new total was only half what was needed.
Earlier yesterday, Ireland signed pledges to reverse deforestation and to cut methane emissions by 30 per cent to help ensure the goal of staying below 1.5 degrees of global warming remains within reach. Among 100 signatories of the deforestation pledge was Brazil, where destruction of the Amazon rainforest recently reached the highest level in a decade.
The EU and US, which spearheaded the global methane pledge, announced initiatives to reduce methane release from oil and gas production and transmission, widely considered to be the lowest hanging fruit when it comes to cutting the highly potent greenhouse gas, which has caused about half of global warming to date.
Agriculture is also a significant source and Ireland has the highest methane emissions per capita in the EU and the third highest among the OECD group of high-income countries, behind only Australia and New Zealand.
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Martin drew criticism from Irish environmentalists and left-wing TDs for playing down the methane initiative’s domestic significance, after he told journalists it was “a global pledge” and “not country-specific”.
Sadhbh O’Neill, a lecturer in climate change at Dublin City University, said: “To sign up to the 30 per cent methane target and then exempt yourself from implementing it gives me a dose of déja vu.”
Solidarity-People Before Profit described the government’s stance on the methane pledge as “spin” and called for a reduction in the national herd.
Brid Smith, a PBP TD, said: “The government needs to take action against big agri producers who are the main producers of methane in this country and they need to take measures to protect small family farms. If we do not cut the herd and legislate to stop the building of liquefied natural gas infrastructure, then we will not be able to actually curb our methane emissions.”
Leo Varadkar, the tanaiste, later told the Dáil the government is targeting a 10 per cent reduction in methane emissions. “Ireland without its beef industry would not be Ireland,” he said.
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Russia, China and India did not join the methane pledge, while the 30 per cent goal falls short of the 45 per cent reduction in methane emissions that the UN Environment Programme said earlier this year was possible by 2030.
Greenpeace accused governments of “giving a free pass to big agriculture” and “dodging what’s needed” by “not including meat reduction or pledges to change people’s diets in this commitment”.
While political leaders from developed countries such as Ireland used the Glasgow stage to speak about the measures they would take to keep global warming within the 1.5 degree goal, those from the countries most vulnerable to climate change emphasised that continuing sea level rise and ocean acidification are already locked in by emissions to date.
Philip E Davis, prime minister of the Bahamas, used his address to highlight the devastating impact of the category five Hurricane Dorian in 2019. “Please do what is needed, not what you can get away with,” he told world leaders,” he said. “The Bahamas is not the problem yet we are forced to pay the price. Countries like mine are out of time.”
The Department of Foreign Affairs said work was underway on a new “climate finance road map” and the government was committed to increasing overseas aid, but it did not comment on whether the newly announced funding would be additional to the aid budget, worth €868 million this year.