GREEN PARTY LEADER Roderic O’Gorman has said it is disappointing that the Taoiseach and Tánaiste are choosing not to attend an international UN climate conference next week, staying at home for the general election campaign instead.

The 29th annual COP conference, a major gathering of countries and their leaders to negotiate joint decisions on climate action, is taking place next week in Azerbaijan.

More than one hundred countries are due to deliver national statements at the conference to update the world on their country’s progress on climate action and cal for collective action.

However, Taoiseach Simon Harris is not expected to attend the summit this year, with Minister for Climate Eamon Ryan lined up to deliver a national statement for Ireland instead.

Harris confirmed yesterday that he intends to dissolve the Dáil tomorrow, which will trigger a general election that is expected to happen at the end of the month. 

O’Gorman, as leader of the Greens in coalition with Harris’ Fine Gael and Tánaiste Micheál Martin’s Fianna Fáil, has criticised the other parties for skipping out on the COP this year.

“Earlier today, we learned that 2024 is virtually certain to be the hottest on record. We’ve already seen lethal and costly flooding and storms in Midleton, the Danube, Spain and many other parts of the world,” O’Gorman said.

“We need our leaders to do what it takes to protect this country from more destruction in the years ahead,” he said.

“In the Green Party, we’re very proud that Eamon Ryan will lead the talks on global climate adaptation, but it is disappointing that neither the Taoiseach nor Tánaiste will be joining other world leaders and Foreign Ministers at COP. Ireland needs to be standing on the world stage when it comes to climate action.”

In recent years, Ireland has been trying to fight a previous reputation of being a climate ‘laggard’.

The country has made progress in some areas, such as expanding capacity for renewable energy and increasing public transport provision, but greenhouse gas emissions have been slow to fall.

There have been repeated warnings that Ireland is likely to overshoot emissions ceilings set for 2025 and 2030. The Climate Change Advisory Council has recently said there is a chance the 2025 target could be met but that the prospects for staying within a tighter emissions budget in the 2026-2030 period are low without significant movement on climate action.

Eamon Ryan, who is due to attend the conference, will have a busy agenda after being appointed by the COP presidency to help lead negotiations on the important issue of climate adaptation.

Each of negotiation files – like mitigation, adaptation, finance and carbon markets – are helped along by two facilitators, one from a developing country and one from a developed country.

Ryan will co-lead negotiations on climate adaptation with Franz Tattenbach, Costa Rica’s minister for environment and energy. Adaptation relates to efforts to protect people and places against the impacts of climate change that are already happening or will happen.

Additional reporting by Christina Finn and Jane Matthews

The Journal’s Lauren Boland will be in Azerbaijan next week to cover COP29 and will be sending daily editions of our climate newsletter Temperature Check – you can sign up for it here.