IRELAND MAY be obliged to pay €180 million per annum to developing countries by 2020 to help mitigate climate change if a new treaty involving higher targets on global emission reductions is achieved in Copenhagen.
Minister for the Environment John Gormley said yesterday this was his own calculation of Ireland’s share based on richer developed countries diverting an estimated €100 billion to poorer countries, some of which will experience the most adverse effects of climate change.
He also expressed his own view as Minister that the money to pay this should be completely separate from the overseas development budget. However, he accepted that the Cabinet had not come to a decision on the matter.
Mr Gormley was responding to questions from the Fine Gael and Labour spokespersons on energy Simon Coveney and Liz McManus.
He said the sources of funding would come from a number of sources, including the Exchequer and from developing carbon markets.
Mr Gormley was appearing before the Oireachtas Committee on Climate Change and Energy Security where he briefed committee members on the position of the EU and of the Irish Government in the run-up to the key UN conference on climate change in Copenhagen next month.
In his opening submission to the committee, the Minister expressed pessimism about a strong outcome emerging at Copenhagen.
“At best, we are now looking at the possibility of a politically-binding agreement rather than a legally-binding treaty.
“That is disappointing, and in my view flies in the face of the fact that we are all too quickly approaching a point where the impact of climate change will become significantly more challenging and more costly to address.”
Later Mr Gormley became embroiled in a row with Ms McManus and Mr Coveney over the timing of climate-change legislation.
Mr Gormley said he hoped to have a “scoping document” ready ahead of travelling to Copenhagen next month.
The committee published its own report on climate-change legislation which Ms McManus said was detailed enough to supply a Heads of Bill for legislation, but which she inferred the Government had not taken on board.
Mr Gormley said the report could not form a Heads of Bill but was rather an explanatory memorandum (that could not in itself form the basis for legislation).
Ms McManus conceded this point, but said this issue was above politics. “At the very least you should have sent the explanatory memo to the Attorney General.”
The Minister said the legislation was complex and needed buy-in from many other Government departments.
He also challenged Ms McManus’s assertion that Ireland was lagging behind the US on the climate-change issue.
“It’s not true to say the US is ahead of us. We have signed up to the Kyoto Protocol. To come out with a statement to say we are behind the US is not the case.”