 And this is an event that is supported by Ira Shade. So I will ask Rory DeBurke, head of Ira Shade, to make a few comments. But just to say how thrilled the institute is to have Mary here, whom I have known since I accidentally voted for her in the 1990 presidential election. Woo! A long story, I'll tell you some other time. But so we are really delighted to have Mary here. She has spoken in the Institute before, but I think it's very timely to hear from Mary this afternoon. So please welcome Rory DeBurke to make some opening remarks on behalf of Ira Shade. Thank you. Thanks, Barry. I'm glad to know that it was true, that it was going to burst the party. But it's nice to be here and nice to have an invitation to introduce somebody who in many ways needs no introduction. And I was thinking, what do I say? And probably you all know what I should be saying, so I shouldn't say it. But in many ways, Mary is kind of a new islander. There was a fulcrum moment in 1990 when Mary got elected, which in many ways, you could say started the journey to where we are today. It coincided with a football team doing well as well. And it was something about that coincidence of the football team and the light in the window, which for me kind of was the start of a journey to a sort of a more multicultural island. And Mary's presidency opened the doors to that in many ways. And it also, I think, coincided with some of the thinking around our peace process and that sense of us being a plural people rather than a binary people. And that thinking, and Mary in her own work, wove in and out sometimes controversially with handshakes and stuff as part of the discussion about making us challenge our own binaries. And that was very important. And that in many ways is part of our journey to our new island. And she was in New York earlier this week to help us with the launch of our security council bid. And if there's anybody here with any influence on the unilateral, tell your friends to vote Ireland and vote often. But in many ways, Mary's commitment to multilateralism, which maybe isn't New Ireland, but it's very important to our New Ireland in a much more complicated world. Mary, leaving our presidency to become head of a UN organization, I'm bringing that passion for people, that multicultural people that she was part of the journey to bring into Ireland, bringing that passion for others and refugees to the UN and beyond, I think very important. The questions that Mary gave voice to then are questions which are very pregnant in the world we live in today and very much influential on the Europe that we live in and that we have to engage in in a context where our neighbors are maybe finding different answers to the questions which we're all asking and a reminder to ourselves that we have to be open to lots and lots of good answers to difficult questions. And then, of course, climate change and climate justice, which is the theme of today, rights, fairness, climate justice pathways to 1.5%. And I think as we all listen to the radio this week and stories of drought, and we think back to a few months ago to the remarkable confinement of a nation indoors for two days because of snow, I think we're beginning in our personal lives to experience the questions around climate justice that Mary brought to us a number of years ago. And we need people of Mary's passion and influence in leadership. If we're going to change very deep rooted habits, traditions, institutions, that in many ways form what are our modern societies. And we need more new islanders like Mary moving forward. If this new island or new Ireland that we're going to live in in the next century is going to remain healthy and relatively cool. And I think we owe Mary and people like Mary a debt of gratitude and it's my great honor to have the privilege of introducing you today and good luck, Mary. Thank you. Thank you very much, Rory. Thank you for those kind words. It's always a pleasure to return to the IIEA because you provide a very valuable forum for discussion on key European and international issues. And I'm very happy to take part in the IIEA Development Matters Lecture Series for 2018. I know you think at times this is a hard part of town to get to, but look at the crowd. People get here because you provide a forum that people really value. We're all conscious of the complexity and breadth of issues facing those working for development cooperation today. From migration and growing pressure on humanitarian aid budgets to the closing of civil society space and threats to human security, development cooperation is a time of challenges and change. It was the focus of our deliberations when I chaired the high-level panel on the reform of the Development Assistance Committee of the DAC, of the OECD, the DAC. The distinguished panel of development experts recognized. And they said it very clearly. And they came from India and China in particular. They said they recognized that the development cooperation landscape has changed beyond recognition since 1961 when the DAC was founded and that we have entered a new era of development cooperation. The traditional lines that distinguished one group of countries from another in what was a donor-recipient relationship have eroded. And the future is one of partnership among equals. Agenda 2030 recognizes that no country has achieved sustainable development and that all countries share the challenge of achieving zero-carbon, climate resilient development. In fact, countries will only be successful in achieving their development goals through cooperation with others. This new era of universality requires development cooperation partners to be more humble and to listen and to learn from other development actors and partner countries. In the report of the high-level panel released last year called A New DAC in a Changing World, Setting a Path for the Future, it suggested that the DAC act as a servant-leader, adopting a more inclusive approach and with a greater emphasis on outreach and dialogue with other development partners in order to increase effectiveness and achieve results. This means that members of the DAC, development cooperation providers, will have to reform their working methods to respond more effectively to the demands and opportunities of a changed development landscape. Around the world, as you know, all countries and countries at all levels of development are getting to grips with implementing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, the SDGs, and preparing their voluntary national reports for the UN on progress to date and challenges ahead. And as I think again, you know, Ireland will present its first VNR at the UN later this month, which highlights the main elements of the SDG National Implementation Plan, 2018 to 2020, based on the fundamental commitment of the 2030 agenda to leave no one behind and to reach the furthest behind first. We've known for a long time that the environment and climate change are part of development. The natural resources on which development depends in many parts of the world are vulnerable to changes in the climate and to environmental degradation. In many developing countries, the links between human development and environmental health are direct. Dirty water means sickness and disease. Depleted soils mean hunger. Extreme weather events mean loss of livelihoods and of economic opportunity. I saw this firsthand again when I visited Malawi in early June. I went to the village of Caniera where I met Lucretia Fimlimoni, who explained to me that changing weather patterns associated with climate change mean that in recent years, she and her family have struggled to grow enough food to feed her family. In the face of these climate impacts, her community has been working with the support of Irish aid and of Trocora to build irrigation systems, to improve watershed management and to make changes to their crop production techniques to increase their resilience and also the variety of crops that they would plant. The hard work is paying off and as a community, they're coping better with the uncertainties in the weather and the growing season as well as more extreme weather events. There is a difference between being here in Ireland and having this nice hot weather that, by and large, we're enjoying and being in a vulnerable country like Malawi, prone to ever more severe drought and ever more severe flooding in the same country and that's something that it's very hard to get across unless people have been there and I know a number of people in the audience have been there and Trocora is represented and has obviously been working there. The vulnerability of people at the local level and of women in particular to the impacts of climate change is also understood in Malawi by government officials at a meeting in the Longway with government of Malawi officials, UN Women and Civil Society representatives, Tawanga Mambali, Director of Environmental Affairs, made a statement that captured the impact of climate change on sustainable development. She said simply, a woman's past to prosperity is even harder because of climate change. Women play a central role in agriculture in Malawi providing over 70% of the labor force. As Lucretia explained earlier, climate change is impacting all elements of food and nutrition security, compounding the injustice of climate change. Living in the tropics, they suffer greater extremes of weather and temperature than we do in the temperate parts of the world. Ultimately, Lucretia understands and experiences every day the links between her environment, her quality of life and her right to development. Her knowledge of the interlinked nature of the factors that determine her wellbeing is well developed and immensely valuable. Yet the international community has taken longer to understand and act on this understanding and even longer to value the knowledge and the lived experience of women like Lucretia. Around the world, women entrepreneurs are setting up renewable energy projects, seeing the benefits for their communities in terms of access to electricity, job creation, improved health due to reduced indoor air pollution and increased safety due to street lighting, reliable lighting in hospitals and clinics and safer storage of food and medicines. Women are also being trained as solar technicians and community sales representatives and they're trusted in these roles by customers due to the fact that they're known and have standing in their community. Overlooking the role of women in a zero carbon economy would be a big mistake. Embracing their knowledge and skills can only bring benefits. And recent statistics give hope that a new form of green development is starting to gain global traction. A report released at the end of May announced that the green economy is now worth approximately four trillion US dollars, roughly the same as the fossil fuel sector. While the fossil fuel economy is shrinking, the green economy is growing. The main contributors to the green economy, however, are industrialized countries like the United States, Japan, Germany, France, of course China in its own way. But there are green economy players in the global south like Ethiopia and Mongolia. And they're not yet a significant contributor to the global green economy. There are also countries developed and developing that continue to rely on fossil fuels and where the pace of change is slower. The challenge for most developing countries is to lift their citizens out of poverty while reducing their reliance on fossil fuels and embracing climate resilient zero carbon development. As the pace of climate action increases in pursuit of the temperature goal set in the Paris Agreement to keep warming well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue 1.5 degrees Celsius, there will be a need to draw on the lessons learned and experience in the development community to ensure that climate policies and actions deliver for people as well as for the planet. As most of you will know, I came to climate change through human rights. When I was, I could see visibly the impacts it was having on the social and economic rights of people and communities I was working with in African countries. And I was also influenced by the work of Barbara Ward, the founder of the International Institute for Environment and Development, IID, when I served as chair of that board for a number of years. Barbara was well ahead of her time in making the connections between environment and development. In her book, Only One Earth, the Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet, published in 1972, she writes of the need, and I quote, clearly to define what should be done to maintain the earth as a place suitable for human life, not only now, but also for future generations. And these concepts were taken up in the 80s, as you know, by my fellow elder, Gru Bruntland. She chaired the World Commission on Environment and Development, which provided the definition of sustainable development used across the world today. When I came back to Ireland to set up the Mary Robinson Foundation Climate Justice in 2010, I was determined to find fair rights-based solutions to an unjust global problem. And as time progressed and I learned more about the transition we need to make to a zero carbon future, I started to question the impacts that transition might also have on human rights. All this at a time when the relevance of human rights to those in the climate community was still in its infancy. I've learned from climate scientists that to avoid the worst impacts of climate change on humanity and on ecosystems, the global community must strive to reach the 1.5 degree goal set in the Paris Agreement. This is ambitious, it is incredibly challenging, the scale of transformation required surpasses anything humanity has done before. But it can be done, and it has to be done. It will involve doing more of the things we now understand well, like afforestation and renewable energy. And it will mean developing new technologies for negative emissions, something we understand less well in terms of possible physical, socioeconomic and ethical impacts. These are the areas of concern from a human rights perspective. Human rights can help to capture the opportunities presented by a zero carbon world, as well as reducing the risks posed by a rapid transition where climate action is rolled out at scale. That's why my foundation worked so hard with a group of champion countries and civil society organizations to ensure that human rights were part of the climate agreement. We were determined not just to recognize the risks posed to human rights from climate change, but also the threats to human rights from climate action. The resulting reminder to all countries in the preamble of the agreement to respect and consider human rights in all climate action signals an important step forward in integrating a rights-based approach. And the importance of this commitment cannot be overestimated. Attention to human rights and climate action can avoid negative impacts on local communities. It can avoid unforeseen delays, even court cases and conflict. This goes for all sectors, including business and those involved in green growth initiatives. As opportunities arise in this transition to sustainable development, it's imperative that investors and businesses protect human rights in their investments, their operations and their supply. Renewable energy companies need to understand their supply chains and engage in human rights due diligence throughout the life of a project. They also need to work with local communities to increase affordable access to energy and share project benefits. Business and investors should deliver a just transition to a low-carbon economy that respects human rights. But worryingly, figures from the Business and Human Rights Resource Center show that just because climate action is good for the planet doesn't mean that it's always good for people. Since 2015, the center has approached companies 128 times to respond to allegations of human rights abuse associated with renewable energy projects, including land grabs and displacement, violations of the right to free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples, harm to individuals, and violence against communities and rights defenders. More than 50% of allegations the resource center has received relate to projects in Central and South America and 28% in Asia. While not questioning the need for a rapid transition, business and investors in the room should take the heed to such cases from a moral standpoint but also from a business standpoint as such cases undermine a license to operate and can cause costly delays. The value of engaging communities in climate action is now recognized in the White Paper, Ireland's transition to a low-carbon energy future, 2015 to 2030. And research and practice from Scotland shows the value of community ownership of renewable energy and the critical importance of engagement processes in ensuring opportunity support for climate action. The national dialogue and climate change provides another important opportunity to get broad stakeholder engagement with climate action in Ireland, to envisage a zero-carbon economy and to capture the benefits of an inclusive and just transition to a climate resilient Ireland. Just yesterday, the Iraqis decided to set up a special joint committee on climate action to take account of the, I think very good recommendations of the citizens assembly. And just last week in a paper published in the journal Nature Climate Change, Tara Schein and I made the case that the risks posed by climate change and temperatures increase above 1.5 and two degrees Celsius to human rights far outweigh the risks posed to human rights from climate action. The things I've been describing like renewable energy installations, tidal barriers or community-based adaptation projects. The risks associated with more than 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming are large, unpredictable and often irreversible. For example, the loss of the coral reefs or the slowing of the Gulf Stream. On the other hand, the risks posed by climate action can be mitigated by attention to human rights, gender equality, ethics and good practice in policymaking. The lessons learned by development practitioners on how to design effective policies that are inclusive, environmentally and socially sound and economically beneficial are critical repositories of knowledge and experience for the transition to a zero carbon climate resilient world. For example, in Ecuador, recognition of the links between the right to participation and environmental rights is a principle of the national climate change strategy. Ecuador's constitution recognizes rights of participation, rights for indigenous peoples and rights for the environment and it explicitly links all three, promoting their mutual integration within government actions and programs. The status obliged to, and I quote, to establish and implement programs with the participation of the community to ensure conservation and sustainable use for biodiversity. In keeping with this commitment, the Sociobusk program aims to conserve four million hectares of forests, reducing deforestation and improving the lives of over a million people. The work to conserve the forest is carried out by people like Mordor Ortiz, a husband, a father and a school teacher who lives in Doreno, a small community of indigenous Eifcofan people in northeastern Ecuador. Mordor and other participants in the program voluntarily decide how much forest to conserve and they sign a pre-hector agreement with the Ministry of Environment. Through these conservation agreements, funds are generated and communities create an investment plan to decide how the funds will be used. The community's whole meetings with full participation by all members so that everyone has a say in deciding where the funds will go. And the funds can only be used in productive ways that benefit the whole community. Through, for example, education, housing, conservation, healthcare, ecotourism, surveillance, and fund-saving projects. As Madardo says, and I quote, in the past we looked after the forest but we've never received any benefit. We're happy to maintain our long tradition of taking care of the forest and pass it along to our children. This program shows the positive impact we can have on the forest and the planet when our work is valued, when our work is valued. Climate change is a reminder of our interconnectedness locally and globally. No country, be it Ireland, Malawi, Ecuador, or the United States can tackle climate change alone. For each country, contributing their fair share can take a different form. Small island states will focus on investing in adaptation to cope with sea level rise and saltwater intrusion as well as decentralized renewable energy. Big emitters will emphasise greenhouse gas emissions reductions in their own economy and are required to provide financial and technical support to assist developing countries to mitigate and adapt to climate change. As our article in Nature Climate Change points out, this support for developing countries is critical for a just pathway to 1.5 degrees Celsius so that less wealthy countries don't get left behind in the transition to a green economy. The focus now is on the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the steps each country is taking to reduce their emissions and increase climate resilience. The Talenoa, our facilitator of dialogue, taking place under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change this year is the first review of progress towards the temperature goals set in Paris. Its outcomes will equip the international community with the information needed to increase the ambition of pre- and post-2020 nationally determined contributions or NDCs, the voluntary actions each country committed to as part of the Paris Agreement. And this is critical as current NDCs have the world on a path to 3 degrees Celsius or more of warming and the certainty of large-scale climate injustice and large-scale suffering. The format of the Talenoa Dialogue is shaped by Fujian tradition and has as its core the purpose of sharing stories, building trust and empathy. And anyone here in the audience who remembers the Hunger and Nutrition Climate Justice Conference which was convened by the Irish government and my foundation here in Dublin in 2013 will be familiar with this format as it mirrors the learning circles approach that we used at that event in which my foundation has used as a mode of convening over the past eight years. The Talenoa tradition echoes the principles of climate justice and has brought a new form of equitable decision-making to the climate convention. The effect is to level the negotiations and to hear all concerns and ideas on an equal footing. And I believe this will be critical in shaping the next phase of climate action worldwide where every country's actions and commitments count towards the collective good. Action at home and action on the international stage will have to go hand in hand as international scrutiny of each country's actions and inactions increases. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, will release its report, as you know, its special report on the 1.5 degrees temperature goal this October. A draft is currently with governments for review and it's expected to highlight the increased risks associated with 1.5 degrees versus two degrees of warming and obviously, worse again, above two degrees. 2018 should be remembered in the future as the year when the IPCC published a report that made an unequivocal case for 1.5 degrees Celsius and called for a just transition to zero carbon by 2050. A time when countries large and small held a series of dialogues where they listened to each other and learned from each other and where the global consensus was that all countries should scale up their climate action before 2020 with leadership coming from the most polluting countries. A year when an understanding of the co-benefits of climate action and implementing the sustainable development goals informed zero carbon planning and climate resilient development in countries around the world. In my time as president of Ireland and indeed in the roles I've been playing since then, I've always been proud of visiting Ireland's development cooperation programs around the world. Most recently, as I said, in Malawi. They are programs powered by compassion and empathy, driven by committed and talented staff and informed by an understanding of Ireland's role in the interchanging world. The power we have lies in our ability to understand the needs of others and to use our influence to make a difference. That difference must be underpinned by a commitment to the rule of law, respect for the rights of every person, gender equality and social inclusion. These are the values that make us human and also that make us Irish. And it's no surprise to me that the approach is completely aligned with the principles of climate justice. So, since it's warm in this room, let me end with some words of wisdom from Barbara Ward, who helped me to connect my passion for people to a passion for the natural world. She said, and I love these words, she said, we have forgotten how to be good guests, how to walk lightly on the earth, as its other creatures do. Our commitment to protect this small planet must go hand in hand with our commitment to the rights of all people and all people that call this small planet home. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you.