The Minister for Environment Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan, has said that COP28, the massive UN Climate Summit starting next Thursday in Dubai, is about seeking radical change and the scaling up of global efforts to address the climate crisis.
He said this is going to require multilateral co-operation on a scale never seen before because we are at a critical point in human history.
The first global stocktake of delivery on the climate action commitments entered into in the Paris Climate Acord of 2015 will be a key feature at COP28.
There is no question that this will result in enormous pressure on countries to do far more and accelerate climate action because we are so far off course.
The Paris commitment was to do everything possible to limit global warming to 1.5C.
Only last week however, the UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres warned that greenhouse gas emissions are rising so fast that the planet is racing towards a "dead-end of 3 degrees temperature rise".
He said the emissions gap between what is actually occurring and what is required to limit global warming is more like an emissions canyon, littered with broken promises, broken lives and broken records.
The years from 2015 to 2022 were the eight warmest years on record and there is a 98% chance that at least one of the next 5 years will exceed the current warmest year on record.
This year has been a year of extremes with exceptional heat waves, scorching wildfires, torrential rains and devastating tropical cyclones.
So far in 2023, average global temperatures have set records and exceeded the critical level of 1.5C over pre-industrial levels on 86 separate days.
July was the hottest month on record, but temperature records were also shattered in June, August, September, and October.
Global average sea surface temperatures also reached record high levels.
To achieve the Paris Agreement Goal, the UN says all countries must act with ambition at COP28 and urgently accelerate low carbon transformations.
It says global greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 must be cut by at least 28 to 42%.
Mr Guterres is urging leaders and negotiators to agree "a clear phase down of fossil fuels".
The greenhouse gas that could be emitted over the lifetime of all existing and planned oil, coal, and gas facilities is equivalent to 3.5 times the carbon budget available to limit warming to 1.5 degrees according to the United Nations.
It means that by 2030 the overshoot in global greenhouse gas emissions will be equivalent to the entire annual emissions of the United States, Europe and China combined.
Responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions and the climate crisis has not been even.
Globally the top 10% of income earners are responsible for nearly half of total greenhouse emissions. The bottom 50% contribute only 12% of emissions.
It has also been found that the impact of extreme weather and climate change disproportionately affects vulnerable communities.
It destroys the lives and livelihoods of the poor, makes poverty and inequality worse, heightens food and water insecurity and causes huge economic instability.
Between 1970 and 2021 there were 11,778 reported disasters attributed to weather, climate, and water extremes. Between them, they resulted in over 2 million deaths and $4.3 trillion in economic losses.
But according to the UN, over 90% of these reported deaths and 60% of economic glasses occurred in developing economies.
Addressing these issues and imbalances will be at the heart of the negotiations in Dubai during COP28.
Urgent and ambitious climate mitigation and adaptation is needed.
Every fraction of a degree and every tonne of carbon dioxide matters to limit global warming and achieve the sustainable development goals.
World levels of hunger are back to where they were in 2005. A total of 15% of countries are currently in debt default and another 45% are at risk of going into default.
Minister Eamon Ryan says radical reform of the global financial system is urgently needed if we are to provide the necessary climate finance to help those most vulnerable and least developed countries.
The Minister played a key role last year at COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh when he took the ministerial lead for the European Union in the negotiations that resulted in agreement to establish a new Loss and Damage Fund.
The idea behind this fund is to provide massive financial assistance and support to countries affected by extreme weather events and climate related disasters.
This is going to be a huge issue again at COP28. Decisions have yet to be taken about who should contribute to this Loss and Damage fund and who should be able to draw down from it.
Minister Ryan is expected to play a key role in these negotiations again this year.
A range of innovative sources of financing have already been proposed. These include the imposition of levies on international aviation and shipping both of which are major greenhouse gas emitters.
The figures show that a levy of just 1% on international aviation revenues could raise as much as $8 billion per year.
Some proposals suggest the levy could be introduced on a voluntary basis immediately, with staged introduction of the charges, starting with business class travellers.
The International Maritime Organisation agreed earlier this year in July that some sort of levy on the emissions from shipping could be among the options to be further considered.
