Paul Murphy urges Ireland to endorse fossil fuel treaty

thanks a lot thanks for the presentations and your work and also just to mention the presence of friends of the earth who similarly have obviously been doing a lot of work on this and i think have not been invited due to oversight which we attempted to kind of resolve earlier but weren't able to because of various rules about privilege and so on and but hopefully we won't make that mistake in the future if all of us are back re-elected and back to this committee in future um just um to start with a question which kind of is partly an assessment of cop 28 and then looking forward to cop 29 like i felt there obviously are positives in cop 28 in some of the language around um pointing towards phase down of fossil fuels in energy systems but personally i felt that some of that was overblown um kind of greenwashed in terms of the when you get into the meat of it which i think is article 28 you have this stuff about unabated coal power as opposed to just coal like even just coal never mind the rest of the fossil fuels you have references to technologies all pointing towards something substantially less than what the science points to that we need a rapid phase out of all fossil fuels and not relying on the kind of magical future technology which allows us to put off the radical changes that we need now um how do you feel things are shaping up in terms of cop 29 friends of the earth have pointed out that the presidency's action agenda doesn't include any mention of phasing out coal oil and gas which is obviously worrying how do you see the prospect of getting substantially stronger language into the the final outcome yes um well i think yeah we we shared your assessment of cop 28 and um it was interesting to see earlier versions of the text that talked about it just an equitable phase out and then the language being eroded and eroded and eroded and being included of unabated technologies as well so um i think the this cop will be no different um the so uh we're not following the the process as closely as friends in the earth actually on this but i think it's a constant battle and you can see that short-term politics is taking precedence over uh the climate action that we need um but also maybe to say that very linked to that is the the need to unlock the finance debate and last year cop nearly fell because of um adaptation and actually developing countries again feeling that um they're not being listened to in terms of the finance that's needed uh for overall mitigation um and their overall climate plans um so i think the the the point for this cop as well will be seeing the interlinkages between the two and the fact that we won't be able to move forward on our climate targets unless the finance is provided yeah i can add briefly to that um so yeah i think it's going to be very difficult this year to kind of achieve any progress on fossil fuel phase out in addition to what we saw last year and that's primarily due to the fact that this has been billed a finance cop all of the negotiations and political attention will be on the ncqg um but having said that it is worth pointing out that the i think the single biggest delegation at cop 28 after the uae and the united states was the fossil fuel lobby um and that's been the case for you know the last the last few cops i think it's it's really important that ireland um should at the very least reject the inclusion of industry lobby lobbyists at this cop and at future cops um and kind of lend our support to kind of the need for increased ambition on fossil fuel phase out um but insofar as your question as to the likelihood of there being greater um kind of language achieved in the decision text on fossil fuel phase that i think the likelihood is low um but yeah thanks a lot um just related to that um if i could get you to give your opinions on the idea of a fossil fuel non-proliferation uh treaty which in my opinion like we're seeing the real structural limitations of um the cop process and i don't think that means you throw the cop process in the bin because it's a global process but effectively the slowest moving the most powerful countries in the world who are beholden to fossil fuel interest are able to stop happening stop us doing what we we need to do and therefore the idea of those countries that have a greater ambition coming together to drive that in a parallel process and in turn then i think that would have positive kind of reverb effects within the cop process and what's your attitude towards that jump in oh sorry yeah i'm again friends of the earth are kind of better placed to comment on this than we are but um you know our call is for ireland to endorse the fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty um there's no treaty text that yet exists as far as i understand it um but what we're calling for is political endorsement of the idea to develop such a treaty and that's a pretty low bar risk rather than securing the the state's legal entry into um any new international agreement it will take time it's not going to solve the issue overnight it'll you know international treaties take take years sometimes decades to negotiate but it is something we're looking for ireland to kind of endorse at the very at the very least yes and maybe to come in yeah completely agree and i think you know we've seen globally multilateral spaces are under such pressure at the moment and cop is no different it's so important it's so important we get ambitious decision text at cop but we need other tools um and we fully endorse the the fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty or ireland and endorsing the treaty and we saw before like ireland has played roles in the the cluster uh ban ammunitions treaty um ireland can play an outsized role sometimes in these global negotiations but it's very clear like if we don't curb fossil fuels we're not going to get to where we need to be and we need binding regulation so this idea that somehow fossil fuel industries are going to change their behavior and practice while they're still raking in profits and while investment is still flowing in completely the wrong direction and that's why again with climate finance when we're looking at the global picture we're seeing um the money going completely the wrong way and climate finance just being ignored year after year so we would definitely call on ireland to endorse the treaty at cop it's a perfect opportunity to do it and we do know that minister ryan is due to attend a meeting of those who have signed up already to endorse the treaty he's been invited as an observer and so it will be a great opportunity for ireland to to wholeheartedly endorse it then thanks a lot and just finally then and to focus on the climate finance uh question could you outline what what what are the obstacles and the forces that are behind those obstacles uh to this sort of uh agreement ambition that uh you are arguing i agree with you uh are are necessary yeah i can jump in on that um i guess one of the the major obstacles probably the the major obstacle is the debate around the contributor base question um so currently under article 9 of the paris agreement developed countries um which i already mentioned are have responsibilities and obligations to provide climate finance um developed countries including ireland are essentially arguing that the global landscape has changed significantly since 1992 when developed countries the developed country list under the unf triple c was agreed and should now be expanded to include economies uh who have grown and are big fossil fuel producers um in our view i guess you know that it's still very much the case that countries in the global north um largely responsible for the extraction of fossil fuels in the global south and the burning of those fossil fuels are responsible for causing the crisis and therefore still bear the major responsibilities and a lot of ngos in the global south see this as a a technique to distract from the fact that there are responsibilities that have to be met and they have been unfulfilled for decades um whether or not you know um china or or other countries um provide climate finance and in many cases they already do it doesn't change the fact that we have obligations that we have haven't met and we have to meet those obligations um so in our view ireland should um you know basically not get drawn into this long tedious debate about whether which countries um should should pay into this new um this new goal we have obligations and we have to pay them first and foremost okay okay maybe just to also um add to that i think it's you know it's something civil society will really focus on at this cop and um the the debates all often get stuck on technocratic arguments you know so i think it's really important that we call out like at the moment the eu position is that they don't agree to sub goals of the ncqg again you know that can seem a little like not that significant but what it means is um it's it's really undermining accountability and the biggest problem with climate finance is there's zero accountability uh there's a there's a new report out by the one campaign and they call it the wild west of reporting you know there's just there's no uniformity the definitions are loose and countries are using different criteria to report climate finance um and so it's becoming meaningless because the whole point was that it would mobilize new money um and to be directed towards countries that need it and now that's not happening and oftentimes it's taken away from uh development finance um so i think calling out and again the the eu position is not to agree a figure um for the new goal or you know even have discussions around it so it's very hard to see how developing countries can have trust in this process when it's just being blocked at every pass and what actually is needed is is a collective uh coming together to say yes we have a historical responsibility we have broken promises for decades and now we'll chart out a new um era of climate finance and so that the action that we we need can be implemented and so that the action that we we need can be implemented and so that the action that we we need can be implemented and so that the action that we we need can be implemented and so that the action that we we need can be implemented and so that the action that we we need can be implemented and so that the action that we we need can be implemented and so that the action that we we need can be implemented and so that the action that we we need can be implemented and so that the action that we we need can be implemented and so that the action that we need can be implemented and so that the action that we need can be implemented and so that the action that we need can be implemented and so that the action that we need can be implemented