Taoiseach Micheál Martin has told the Cop30 climate summit he is concerned that world leaders are losing their appetite for action on the climate crisis.
Mr Martin highlighted the low turnout of heads of state and government at the gathering in Belém, Brazil, and said other global problems are being used as an excuse to let climate slip as a priority.
The Taoiseach was one of fewer than 60 prime ministers, presidents and other leaders to address the opening day of the two-day Belém Climate Summit ahead of the main Cop30 negotiations beginning on Monday.
“I recall when the world gathered in Glasgow for Cop26. The mood then was optimistic, as we emerged from the pandemic,” he said.
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“There was a large global turnout and a palpable sense of joint purpose to tackle the shared challenge of climate change.
“I am concerned that that spirit of common purpose is weakening.”
He continued: “Geopolitical turbulence. Economic pressure. Conflict and dislocation. All have been presented as reasons to ease or delay action.
“But increasingly, the challenges we face arise because of climate change, and this will worsen with time.
“At a time when political leadership has never been more vital, there are fewer of us here in Belém, fewer leaders ready to tell it as it is.”
Speaking shortly after the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) reported that the last 11 years were the warmest in 176 years of record-keeping, Mr Martin said climate change is “unarguable”.
Ireland has experienced it this year with Storm Éowyn, the warmest spring and summer on record and an unprecedented marine heatwave.
“The science is undeniable. Temperatures are rising, and the clock is ticking,” he said.
“If we are not prepared to tell our citizens the truth about this, we are failing them, and this planet, in the most profound way. Science cannot be denied.”
This theme also ran strongly through the addresses of the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who said Cop30 must be “Cop of truth” and of UN secretary general Antonio Guterres.
Mr Guterres said there must be no more lobbying and greenwashing that deceived the public about the realities they faced in a changing climate.
He also said that missing the climate target of keeping global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees was “a moral failure and deadly negligence”.
The WMO report said keeping temperature rise to 1.5 degrees in the next few years is now “virtually impossible”.
