MINISTER FOR CLIMATE Eamon Ryan has warned that the climate crisis has gone “down the order” of political priorities internationally as other geopolitical issues like conflict wreak destruction.

However, failure by states to reach an agreement on climate finance to help developing countries would “shoot it back” up again because of what a lack of action would mean for the world’s chances of staving off climate change, he said.

Tens of thousands of people from government delegations, civil society groups and media organisations have gathered in Baku, Azerbaijan for the 29th annual COP – an international climate conference that sees countries negotiate and try to strike agreements on important issues over the course of two weeks.

The main item on this year’s agenda is setting a new global target for climate finance that would be used to enable developing countries to take climate action – something that’s crucial both for their own sake and for the rest of the world given that climate change is a global problem.

Eamon Ryan arrived today at the conference, where he has been appointed by the COP29 presidency to co-facilitate talks about climate adaptation. He’s also the only senior Government member from Ireland to attend after Taoiseach Simon Harris and Tánaiste Micheál Martin both stayed home to campaign ahead the general election instead. 

“Climate change has gone down the order of political priorities, it’s true, for a variety of complex reasons. There’s conflict in the world,” Ryan said at the COP this morning, addressing the non-attendance this year by some key world leaders.

He said that the level of political attention given to climate “comes and goes”, adding: “I’m 30 years involved. We’ve seen the tide come in and tide come out.”

The deficit of attention from some countries comes despite the World Meteorological Organisation warning this week that the past decade has been the warmest 10-year period of of modern records and 2024 is on track to be the hottest single year.

“One thing is absolutely clear: If we didn’t get agreement here, it would shoot right back to the top of political priorities, because our populations would rightly say – so, what are you going to do? Are we going to allow the world burn? Are our children going to live in an unstable, unsafe, dangerous world?

“I think we should be careful about not reading too much into how many leaders are here – what will matter is what’s the final agreement,” he said.

COP29 had been anticipated by some to be a ‘quieter’ COP than others after a series of landmark decisions in recent years.

However, registration numbers show it is potentially the second most-attended COP ever and the importance of the negotiations on climate finance is becoming clearer and clearer.

At least $1 trillion is needed each year at a minimum to enable developing and small island countries deal with the climate crisis, which they have historically contributed to causing the least compared to high-income countries but yet have the least resources to be able to mitigate and adapt.

“Climate finance is absolutely critical to unlocking climate action in the Global South,” said Teresa Anderson, ActionAid International’s Global Lead on Climate Justice 

Speaking to The Journal at COP29, Anderson said that “the fact that there has been so little climate finance up until now really is making it so hard for all countries in the Global South to take action that they need to and communities are suffering”.

We see every day that their vulnerability is getting deeper.

“Their governments are getting forced into more and more debt, and it’s almost impossible for countries to cope with and recover from climate disasters and adapt to future impacts, let alone have the finance to transition to greener pathways.

“So unless we get real climate finance in the new collective quantified goal here at COP29, we’re not going to be able to see the Global South coping with the climate crisis and we’re not going to see the planet cutting emissions at the scale we need to avert a runaway climate breakdown,” she said.