Ireland will honour its commitment of €225 million per year in taxpayer money to “help other countries invest in climate action,” Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said.
Speaking to RTÉ News while at the United Nations COP28 climate conference in Dubai, the Taoiseach said that “we need to put our money where our mouth is and help poorer countries to reduce emissions,” adding: “By doing so we will help ourselves.”
Ireland to contribute to climate finance at COP28 negotiations – Varadkar | Read more: https://t.co/HGsGrI39z3 pic.twitter.com/RTnaQVOMXj
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) December 1, 2023
“The real thing that we can bring to the table as a small country, but also a wealthy country, is helping with climate finance – helping other countries to invest in climate action,” he said, adding that Ireland would be honouring its commitment to increase its annual contribution to €225 million per year.
For context, in 2020, Ireland’s climate finance totalled just €88.3 million, comprising more than 10% of the country’s total Official Development Assistance (ODA) – a kind of financial aid given to developing countries.
The Programme for Government 2020 committed to doubling the proportion of Ireland’s ODA that counts as climate finance by 2030, and in November 2021, then-Taoiseach Micheál Martin set a further target of providing at least €225 million per year in climate finance to developing countries by 2025.
Continuing to speak to RTÉ, Varadkar further said that he would formally announce Ireland’s contribution to international climate finance tomorrow during his address on behalf of the country to the COP28 conference.
The Taoiseach claimed that many countries make promises regarding climate pledges which then fail to materialise, so rather than making any new promises he said that Ireland would simply ensure it followed through on the pledges it had made to date.
He said that while climate finance was the best thing Ireland could contribute to the climate fight, at home he would retain focus on reducing emissions and scaling up climate policies. He added that Ireland was negotiating at the UN conference as part of the European Union – a bloc he said was setting a good example on climate matters.
EDIT: An earlier version of this article contained a typographical error saying at one point that €255 million in taxpayer money was pledged – this was a typo, and the piece has been amended to reflect the true figure of €225 million.