Ireland and Austria are now the only developed countries yet to pledge money for the United Nation’s Green Climate Fund, after both Australia and Belgium announced that they would be contributing €133 million and €50 million respectively.
Minister for Energy and Natural Resources Alex White told the climate conference that Ireland was still "actively exploring all options for scaling up our mobilisation of climate finance, including in relation to the Green Climate Fund".
In his address, he congratulated countries that had made pledges, saying that Ireland recognised the fund as a “key instrument in mobilising action” and expected to match last year’s climate aid allocation of €34 million in 2014.
Mr White said the Government would finally publish its Climate Action and Low-Carbon Development Bill this month and would “strive for de-carbonisation of the power generation, transport and built environment sectors” in the decades to 2050.
“This is a whole-of-Government response, requiring sectoral mobilisation towards preparation of a National Mitigation Plan. As Minister for Energy, a key element of my contribution will be the development of a revised national energy strategy.”
He said the Government’s vision of a “carbon-neutral” farming and food sector would focus on “improving agricultural resilience, productivity and resource efficiency – for example, we have already carbon foot-printed more than half of our farms”.
