Media Release: Civil Society Groups welcome Ireland’s adoption of Global Compacts

December 10, 2018

Media Release

Monday 10th December

Civil Society Groups welcome Ireland’s adoption of Global Compacts

Today in Marrakech, Ireland along with over 180 countries across the world, will sign the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration* (GCM).

The Irish Refugee and Migrant Coalition (IRMC***) welcomes the Irish government’s engagement with the UN process and in signing the Compact.

Edel McGinley, spokesperson for the IRMC said “this is a welcome step as it re-affirms Ireland’s commitments to upholding human rights. While it falls short of the ideal, it is a landmark document in the history of international migration as it recognises that migration is a key part of human life”.

Last week (4th -7th December), the Global Forum on Migration and Development ** also met in Morocco to look at strategies for implementation of the GCM.

McGinley continued “Ireland is a diverse county with a long history of migration and a deep understanding of what it means to move. Ireland therefore must be a leader in the implementation of a rights focused approach to migration across the world. This is all the more significant as this day 70 years ago the UN Declaration of Human Rights was adopted”.

ENDS

Notes

Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan along with world leaders including Angela Merkel will address the Intergovernmental Conference in Marrakesh on Monday 10th December. http://www.un.org/en/conf/migration/

*The Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) is an initiative launched by governments in the United Nations in September 2016, with the New York Declaration. The Global Compact on Refugees was negotiated during the same time period and adopted in November 2018. The GCM agrees a cooperative framework of principles and action in the area of migration. It is nonbinding agreement that gives political direction to states. The Global Compact on Migration contains 23 commitments, with a series of actions under each one. The Compact is intended to be read and implemented as a whole, addressing migration “in all its dimensions”. See full text here https://undocs.org/en/A/CONF.231/3

**The 11th Global Forum on Migration and Development was held 4th to the 7th December in Marrakesh. The annual forum brought together, civil society, governments and business to focus on the implementation, follow up and review of the Global Compact GFMD website

*** The Irish Refugee and Migrant Coalition is comprised of over 20 organisations working in the area of asylum and migration. Its members are – ActionAid Ireland; Association of Leaders of Missionaries and Religious of Ireland, Community Work Ireland; Christian Aid; Comhlámh; Crosscare; Cultúr Migrants Centre; Dóchas; Doras Luimní; ENAR Ireland; Immigrant Council of Ireland; Irish Refugee Council; Jesuit Refugee Service; Mercy International Association; Migrant Rights Centre Ireland; Mayo Intercultural Action ; NASC Ireland; National Women’s Council of Ireland ; Oxfam Ireland; Trócaire; World Vision Ireland.

Click here for ActionAid’s analysis of the Compact’s 23 objectives.

Contact actionaid.org Ireland or call 01 8787911.

Protestors at COP 28 in Dubai. Photo: Konrad Skotnicki.

Belfast Climate Change March, 2019. Photo: Trócaire.

The Profit Driving the Crisis

Despite their overwhelming contribution to global emissions, fossil fuel companies continue to attract significant financial backing—driven by their enduring profitability. This is starkly illustrated by the case of ExxonMobil, the top fossil fuel investment held by asset managers based in Ireland. In 2023, ExxonMobil reported €33.63 billion ($36 billion) in profit. That is almost twice the GDP of Botswana (€18.1 billion) and nearly three times Namibia’s GDP (€11.5 billion).

Ireland plays a hugely disproportionate role in facilitating investments into fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil. In 2023, the investments made into fossil fuel companies by investment managers based in Ireland generated an estimated 72.5 million tons of CO2e. This is more than the CO2e emissions for the entire country of Ireland—and more than ten times that generated by Sierra Leone.

The Global Human Impact

The climate crisis is here, now, and it is causing disproportionate harm in the Global South. In Bangladesh, rising sea levels and increasingly severe cyclones are displacing coastal communities, with projections indicating that 17% of the entire country could be underwater by 2050. The legally binding Paris Agreement on climate change explicitly acknowledges the importance of tackling private finance. Its three overarching goals are: keeping below 1.5C of warming; increasing adaptation and making finance flows consistent with low emissions and resilience.

This gives a clear mandate for action: both tax reform and corporate regulation are needed to tackle financial flows, and both nationally in Ireland and at EU level, ‘polluter pays’ taxes are lacking and regulation of the financial sector remains weak and fragmented. While EU regulation exists, it is designed more to nudge investors toward more sustainable investment practices by increasing transparency and reporting levels than to enforce strict standards. And it is moving in the wrong direction: the recently passed EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive excluded investments; and now the EU Commission’s Omnibus legislative proposal threatens to undo the limited gains made on climate plans, as well as blocking future attempts for stronger action at national level.

The Risk of Inaction

Fossil fuel investment is too profitable to remain weakly regulated. If Ireland continues with its current strategy of encouraging FDI at all costs, and relying on weak EU regulation, we are headed for catastrophe. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has repeatedly warned that every fraction of a degree beyond 1.5°C brings irreversible consequences: collapsed ice sheets, vanishing coral reefs, and extreme weather events that will make vast regions of the planet uninhabitable. And yet, companies are developing oil and gas fields that could push global warming beyond 2°C.

Our research found that 91% of the investments made into fossil fuel companies by investment managers based in Ireland were to companies that have plans for fossil fuel expansion like these. Ireland cannot afford inaction on this issue.

About This Research

The figures in this report regarding investment from Ireland are based on new research commissioned by ActionAid Ireland and Trócaire. In the paper, we uncover the scale of fossil fuel investment through Ireland, who the investors are, and in which fossil fuel companies they are investing. We analyse the current regulatory framework and explain why it is inadequate—and moving in the wrong direction. And we make specific recommendations for change, which are summarised below.

Summary of Recommendations

Regulate the private financial sector
Ireland must end its outsized role as an enabler of destructive fossil fuel investment. Ireland should introduce a strong gender-responsive national human rights and environmental due diligence framework which includes the regulation of investors with respect to human rights and the environment and climate. The transposition of the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive could achieve this if downstream activities are included and the Omnibus proposal is rejected. Ireland should prohibit investments in fossil fuel expansion and require investors to implement climate transition plans consistent with a 1.5°C climate limit.

Endorse the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty
Ireland should endorse developing a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to curb fossil fuel expansion and commit to a fair and funded phase out of fossil fuels.

Support tax justice
Ireland should support bold and fair new global tax rules through the UN Framework Convention on Tax, should adopt all OECD BEPS measures, and should conduct an updated and comprehensive spillover analysis of its tax policy. Ireland should take coordinated action globally, at the EU level and domestically to introduce a range of new taxes to mobilise finance needed for climate justice, based on ‘polluter pays’ and social equity principles such as wealth taxes for the highest earners, climate damages tax on investors, fossil fuel production taxes and levies on aviation and shipping.

Finance a just transition
Ireland must also meet its fair share climate finance obligations under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, and pay our ecological debt to the Global South. Ireland should support conditionality-free debt cancellation for countries on the front lines of the climate crisis, commit to a new UN Framework Convention on Sovereign Debt, moving debt negotiations from the IMF to the UN, and to a debt workout mechanism that is fully representative and fair.

Media Release: Civil Society Groups welcome Ireland’s adoption of Global Compacts

Civil Society Groups welcome Ireland’s adoption of Global Compacts

The Profit Driving the Crisis

The Global Human Impact

The Risk of Inaction

About This Research

Summary of Recommendations

Further reading

Your Support in Action

The Reality of Occupation in the West Bank

World Cup is a risk for increased gender-based violence against women