A CLIMATE ACTIVIST has urged Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue to implement climate policies as the minister prepares to speak at an event on sustainable food systems that he is leading alongside the United Arab Emirates at COP28.
The Department of Agriculture has organised the event on Sunday with the United Arab Emirates’ Ministry of Climate Change, where McConalogue will make a keynote address.
McConalogue is set to attend COP28, an international climate conference happening this year in Dubai, from Friday evening until Sunday.
The main purpose of the COPs is for countries to negotiate new decisions about driving down greenhouse gas emissions and defending the world against climate change, but on the sidelines, countries and organisations hold an array of events focused on different aspects of climate and the environment.
The UAE is hosting this year’s conference, drawing intense scrutiny over the country’s strong ties to the fossil fuel industry.
A side event at its pavilion on Sunday morning is titled “A Sustainable Food Systems Approach to Innovation for Climate Action”.
McConalogue will give a keynote address along with the UAE’s undersecretary for food diversity, Mohammed Mousa Alameeri, followed by a “discussion with Irish and Emirati participants in a fireside chat format [that] will explore food systems transformation and innovation for climate action”.
A description of the event said that “food systems are a key component of climate action and sustainable food systems transformation requires consideration of the system in its totality, including the entities, elements, institutions and people involved, and all outcomes – economic, political, environmental, health, and social”.
It said the event will focus on the “importance of sustainable food systems in climate action and specifically a systems approach to innovation for climate”, covering Ireland and the UAE’s “experiences in systems transformation”.
Our climate reporter Lauren Boland joined us on Monday from COP 28 to tell us what’s happening on the ground – what measures are being bashed out, and about Ireland’s involvement. Watch here or below.
Friends of the Earth chief executive Oisín Coghlan said this afternoon that it is “hard to know whether this is gaslighting or genuinely innovative collaboration”.
“We can all agree on ‘the importance of sustainable food systems in climate action’, but let’s be clear – Ireland does not yet have ‘experience in systems transformation’ when it comes to agriculture and food,” Coghlan said.
He said there is “no sign” that political and industry leaders have accepted a need to change the “export-led, intensive agriculture business model of the last decade or more”.
“The mere mention by the EPA that a sustainable food system includes people in rich countries reducing how much red meat they eat caused a furore and embarrassing back-tracking,” he said.
“So whatever Minister McConlague says at the event in Dubai, what really matters are the policies and measures he implements when he’s back in Dublin.”
The UAE’s presidency has been marked by controversy.
On Monday, COP28 President Dr Sultan Al Jaber had to defend himself after being criticised for comments he made in an online forum with Mary Robinson in which he suggested there is no science to show that phasing out fossil fuels is necessary to achieve the world’s climate goals.
As the UAE’s climate change envoy but also the head of the state oil company Adnoc, his appointment as president cast a shadow over the conference from the start.
In a statement to The Journal, the Department of Agriculture said that “in 2021, Ireland was one of the first countries to submit a national food system transformation pathway, Food Vision 2030, to the United Nations Food Systems Summit”.
“Since then, we have been promoting food systems transformation in Ireland and in our bilateral and multilateral engagements internationally, including support to the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub, via an emphasis on sustainable food systems in Ireland’s development cooperation programme and engagement by Sustainable Food Systems Ireland with partner countries in Africa, Middle East and Asia to support them on their food systems transformation pathways.”
The department said Food Vision is “honest and upfront” about challenges “but crucially, it proposes solutions and charts a pathway to sustainability in all its dimensions”, adding implementation “is underway, with many of its actions commenced, including important work on environmental sustainability in the dairy and beef sectors”.
Elsewhere at COP28 today, negotiations are debating whether countries will be called on to phase out fossil fuels entirely or simply to “accelerate efforts” towards phasing out “unabated” fossil fuels.
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