 So, as I say, you're very welcome this afternoon to the Institute of International European Affairs. And we're delighted to have organised this event alongside our colleagues at the Canadian Embassy. It's a great pleasure to have the Ambassador of Canada, her Excellency, Ms Nancy Smith, here this afternoon with us once again in our presence here at the Institute. And we have some other distinguished members of the Diplomatic Corps, including the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Morocco, His Excellency Dr Lassen Marruri, which I'm sure isn't dreadful mispronunciation. I do apologise for that, but you're more than welcome to be with us this afternoon. And I don't, on first glance, see any other members of the Diplomatic Corps that I would be buying, of course, to identify and mention. But if you're here, you're very welcome. We're representatives of embassies in Dublin, more than welcome. As indeed is everybody welcome here. Particular are two distinguished speakers, Catherine Stewart, who is Canada's Ambassador for Climate Change, and Dr Sinead Walsh, Climate Change Director at our Department of Foreign Affairs here in Dublin, sitting up here to speak to you, to address you shortly. They both have, as I'm sure you'll appreciate, a wealth of experience on this issue and this agenda, and we're really looking forward to hearing from both of our speakers. It's a timely, you know, we always say timely, it's timely, it always seems to be timely to talk about climate and this agenda. But it is particularly so as we reflect in the weeks and months after COP28 in Dubai, where so much occurred. I think you'll agree there were, I think, great achievements, perhaps some disappointments. And that's the exercise that we're engaging at least partly today is to do the balance sheet, in a sense, and to say, look, what was achieved and what remains to be achieved. And it's often said that the COP process is exactly that, a process that there are a series of great events every year in November, December, which, you know, things culminate and what's going to happen and what decisions will be made and will we get over the line and all the rest of it. As I'm sure our speakers will remind us of the sometimes nail biting exercise that COP meetings tend to be. I know myself was there in Dubai, didn't have a role, but had a role in some of the previous ones, and they can certainly be a great huge expectations that perhaps not always satisfied. But I think we can, we can say, in relation to most of them, and certainly I think in relation to Dubai and it's not up to me to give an assessment, we just throw it in anyway. And I think the approach that we can say was achieved there and an agenda remaining for for the whole world really to address in the in the period ahead. So just in terms of what's going to happen in the next while and master Stuart will give her address for approximately 10 minutes or so, followed by Dr wall she'll also speak for about 10 minutes and the sharing as I say their thoughts and ideas that we can have the opportunity to discuss further in the Q&A session with our audience. Thank you for your indulgence. In relation to the change of time that we had to introduce kind of almost at the last minute or this morning. I'm delighted to see so many people both here in the room and I know online who've been able to stick with us for the new time of two o'clock it was just unfortunately just simply couldn't be avoided but thank you very much for that speakers and guests and everybody for indulgence in that way. It's made a slight impact on my situation in that I'm unfortunately will have to leave. Maybe at about 230 and my good colleague and Barry Colfer who's in the front here at reactive research at the Institute will be here obviously for the Q&A and right through the remaining remainder of the session to remind you that the presentations and the Q&A are both on the record. And if you're watching online by the way I should say you're very welcome equally as welcome you can join the discussion using the Q&A function on zoom which will be very well familiar with now. You can send your questions in as they occur to you. You can't do that if you're in the room because we won't let you interrupt the speakers but you can think of your question put your hand up at the end but if you're online you can pop your question in as soon as it occurs to you and it'll be there for us to go to once the Q&A session gets started. So that's the introduction the main words of introduction. Thank you again for being here. And it's my pleasure firstly to introduce Catherine Stewart. Catherine Stewart was appointed as Canada's ambassador for climate change in August of 2022. She has over 25 years experience in the federal government in Canada. Ambassador Stewart's most recent role was as assistant deputy minister of international affairs at the environment and climate at environment and climate change Canada ECCC. Since 2014 she has served in senior executive roles in that at the ECCC, including as Canada's chief negotiator for climate change, director general of multilateral affairs and climate change and director general for the Americas. So it's my great pleasure to introduce to you our first of our two speakers Catherine Stewart. Thank you very much and it's indeed a pleasure to be here and thank you very much for for the invitation to come and speak about a critical topic climate change and to speak more specifically about COP 28 and what happened have a sober reflection on on what what what occurred. But also hopefully to talk about what's ahead we have a lot of work to do. We're in a crisis situation and and happy to share with you what Canada is doing to address climate change but talk a little bit more on what what we all need to be doing. I'm really delighted to be joined with with Sinead Walsh. I truly admire the work that she's been doing on climate change and she was a lead on the transitional committee to create the loss and damage fund which we stood up at COP 28. A very key piece of I would I consider to be the success of COP 28. So I just want to thank Sinead for all of her for all of her support on that transitional committee and support in the negotiation process. I know you were in those trenches very late and early morning hours and and wanted to to tip my hat to you. So COP 28 for Canada was a very critical moment. We go to cops typically with a very inclusive and diverse delegation we had almost 700 Canadians registered on our delegation. Our delegation included youth representatives, indigenous representatives, business, environmental NGOs, members of parliament, senators, labour groups and provinces and territories, etc. And we feel it's very important to go as an inclusive delegation because we feel very strongly that everybody needs to be part of the solution. So we were there in full force and also there with a negotiating team to try to get a positive outcome. We had this year the global stock take as mandated by the Paris Agreement to have a look on how we're doing collectively in meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement. And no surprise to any of us here. We obviously are not where we need to be to get to keep the temperature goals within reach to keep temperatures within 1.5 degrees of global warming. And we need to be supporting developing countries more. We need to be building more resilient societies. We know we are not doing enough. But the global stock take also enabled us to look back and reflect on where we've come and it's important to be able to do this and to acknowledge where we would be if we didn't have the Paris Agreement. And we would be looking at a trajectory of global warming that is much higher than what we're looking at today if it weren't for the Paris Agreement. So it was this wonderful opportunity to look back but to look forward and to look in looking forward we were able to come to an agreement on what we need to do to keep 1.5 degrees alive to build more resilient societies to support developing countries. And one of the big pieces, one of the big outcomes was work on energy transition. And we all agreed that we need to be looking to contribute to the global goals, global ambition on energy transition, which includes tripling of renewable energy, promoting energy efficiency, continuing to work on the phasing out of coal, also transitioning away from fossil fuels, which I'm sure is something you've heard as one of the big headliners coming out of COP 28. We also agreed on building more resilient societies in a very flexible and country-driven approach to adaptation. And then we also had a good conversation on climate finance and our commitment to developing countries. And just to highlight a couple of things within that, we have made a commitment in 2009 in Copenhagen at a COP to mobilize $100 billion to support developing countries in their efforts to address climate change, $100 billion per year. And we made that commitment to see to it that we would have that $100 billion mobilized by 2020 and every year going forward to 2025. We weren't successful in that, but we have been Canada and Germany joined forces together to create a report on how we are doing on meeting the $100 billion. And over the past three years, using the OECD as kind of a very neutral independent researcher, we are confident now that we're going to hit the $100 billion goal by 2020, very likely in 2020. So we were able to do a lot of work to get agreement that we will likely meet the $100 billion goal in 2020 with commitments to continue to move that forward. That we felt was very important to acknowledge what has been done, but also to acknowledge what more we need to do. So we're working on this new collective quantified goal, and we were able to also set out the modalities for how we're going to be negotiating what that new collective quantified goal is going to look like for the future, the post-2025 finance. And for Canada, we certainly want to make sure we are, you know, mobilizing the trillions that we actually need to get to where we need to be and looking at all possible sources. So that's going to be an interesting part of the negotiations going forward. And so those are kind of two aspects of climate finance, which I felt were really important outcomes here. And then in terms of what we didn't get, we really wanted to see a commitment to phase out coal for power. And we again maintained language that we got back in Glasgow at COP26 on the need to phase out coal. So we wanted to see phase, sorry, phase down, we wanted to see that phase out, thank you. And we also wanted to see an acknowledgement of a peaking of emissions by 2035. We didn't see that or 2025, but we didn't see that. And then also we wanted to see more in-depth conversation on sources of finance. And not to get too technical, but the traditional donors were put on a list back at the establishment of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992. And those are the traditional donors that are still considered the donors today. The world has changed a lot. So we feel it's important that we're looking at all sources and not just the traditional donors and have that conversation on how we can mobilize and better leverage funds to support the financing that we really need. So those were three areas that we wanted to see more ambition on. But I think overall, the outcome was quite positive. We did establish this loss and damage fund that I mentioned earlier, which was really good. We didn't get into a huge debate over the agenda at the beginning to was concluded quite quickly. And then we had a good outcome on the global stock take where we've made some commitments on how to move forward and how to inform our next nationally determined contributions, which we need to be bringing forward by 2025. So I'll leave it there and happy to engage in question and answer. Thank you. Thank you very much. And there's so much to consider there. And thank you for just getting that discussion going on the balance sheet as it were from from the COP 28. And when I ran into briefly into Sinead Walsh and Dubai, it was about nine o'clock in the evening. And for most of the people who are in the company, it was the end of their day. It certainly was the end of my day, but it emerged that it was not the end of Sinead's day. And I think she knew it at the time, but we were there was so much work being done by Sinead and by her team by DFA by all of the negotiators were there by Minister Ryan, it should be said, and leading that the Irish team there that I think we're, you know, really very much in your in in in the debt as I, you know, as the community here in Ireland to Sinead Walsh and to her team for the incredible work that was done and was certainly that I saw being done from obviously from a distance in Dubai and the incredible amount of work that's done by so many civil servants, who often are in the nature of things unsung heroes of this process. And there's none more than our next speaker Sinead Walsh who's climate director in the Department of Foreign Affairs. And prior to this, she served as EU ambassador to South Sudan and Dr Walsh has worked for DFA since 2009. Previously was ambassador to Sierra Leone and to Liberia, the head of Irish aid in the in those two countries as well, if I have that correct before joining DFA Sinead spent 10 years working in the NGO sector as co author of a terrific book getting to zero a doctor and a diplomat on the Ebola frontline. So we're just so delighted to have you Sinead this afternoon and the floor is yours to do some introductory remarks. Thanks so much, Alex. I will try not to to go over time because I think people here can see me anytime but I think Catherine is is is the star of the show. And I was just thinking last night when we found out about your flight. You know when I when I first started this job in 2020, like I used to think it was remarkable before a climate meeting, you know you'd have like a hurricane and Vanuatu or something like that or you'd have floods and and actually now you don't even really remark on that anymore because before every climate meeting there's some there's some sort of unexpected sort of destructive climate events somewhere and you don't even make those observations I was just thinking last night. We no longer say like oh isn't that interesting that you're here for a climate talk and you've got to let you know because we're just so used to it and I think that's a real reflection of where we are and obviously after the hottest, the hottest year on on on record. So it's it's as you say Catherine we've we've a huge amount of work to do. I mean, I think the first thing I wanted to say Alex and you certainly have a perspective on on this is that, you know, this was Ireland's largest and I would say probably deepest engagement ever in a cop and I'm kind of saying that every year. Because because it is and you I think had had experience as Minister when it was much a much tighter tighter team. But it's really gone up the government agenda which is obviously great for for for people like like me and we had had the Taoiseach and the Taunashda, you know, three other ministers and a huge, a huge delegation which is, which is coordinated and as you say a lot of very hard work between by the Department of Environment, a huge amount of logistics and all of that. And I think, you know, Minister Ryan being at at a cop for pretty much two weeks is very unusual and got me a lot of sympathy every time I was telling my colleague they're like two weeks. You know, if your minister comes for a week, everybody, you know, thinks, oh, you poor thing, you know, and I was like my minister for two weeks. That was my excuse for everything. I was like, I haven't sent you that my ministers here for two weeks. And I think, you know, and we got great support. You know, Catherine from yourself and your minister because Minister Ryan is that I'll come to in a minute was was very engaged on the climate finance agenda which which Canada was was co facilitating. And so so it's it was a huge it was a huge Irish kind of a collective effort. And I think I would agree really and I won't repeat what Catherine said about the outcome, you know, I remember thinking at the time. You know, you could say two things about the cop outcome, both of which would be true. You could say, this is the best cop outcome in 30 years. You know, this is this is groundbreaking in terms of, you know, this this language about transitioning away from fossil fuel. You could also say this cop outcome is radically insufficient for the climate crisis. And both of those things are 100% true. So it really just depends on what side of the bed you wake up on in the morning but but I think what we can say without a doubt is that given given the very difficult time we are living through and the very fractured geopolitical environment that we have, you know, I think it can give us some faith in multilateralism more broadly not not even just on on the climate side. And I think, you know, as Catherine has already outlined, I think that, you know, you know, that that is good cop language on mitigation. And are there loopholes, absolutely. And the small island states as colleagues will probably remember were particularly unhappy with some of those loopholes, you know, having mentioned of carbon capture and storage having mentioned of transition fuels and so on. But again it's hard to get almost 200 countries to agree on anything so so I would agree. And I think we would agree that this was this was a largely positive cop and a good test for this system that was put in place in Paris, as Catherine said, not in her official capacity but I think people will be aware that Mary Robinson had the impact at COP even before she arrived. She had a very significant impact in in the media which, you know, some, some commentators say, helped to ramp up the pressure on the UAE presidency, we will never know. But we do we do know that we're very proud of her. And she continues to be an absolute force of nature for for climate justice. I think just one other thought on mitigation. You know, it was great to get the tripling of renewables and the doubling of energy efficiency goals in there that's something that the EU had actually worked quite hard on for for a long time. But I guess the big kind of question mark then there is around capacity and how do we actually move from, you know, where we are now to being able to realize that and I just wanted to mention an Irish, you know, real pioneer in this regard who unfortunately passed away over Christmas. Many of you will know Eddie O'Connor you'll certainly know Eddie O'Connor, Alex, and, you know, quite the visionary in terms of, you know, what is needed and this super grid initiative that that he was working on and which of course will continue to be worked on by by others to have a European grid for for renewables as part of that, you know, infrastructure that's needed because it's much easier to throw out those goals, you know, then it is to actually do the work behind the scenes and I think we'll miss, we'll miss Eddie and his energy, a great deal but I think it's a legacy for for all of us to carry on I know that Canada is very involved in the IEA, not to be confused, and our our own Minister Ryan is co-chairing the ministerial in February I think you guys are also have a leadership position in that, as far as I remember, and I think that's that's, you know, a body it's not every country in the world but I think it's, it's a growing body that's that's kind of one of the pieces of the puzzle I suppose to help us to build that capacity. And but just maybe a few a few thoughts, not on mitigation, because I think we have, you know, understandably focused a lot on on on the mitigation and the emissions reduction of carpet. And, you know, and Catherine already talked about the loss of damage. I think that was, I mean, I suppose, first of all, I'm thrilled that it's over right because that transitional committee just completely took over my life. And everybody's life, including the Canadian colleagues who were on it as well and it was it was very difficult process very contentious process. But I have to hand it to UAE. It was very clever to put that on the first day of cop this has never been done before when we heard that you were going to try and get agreement for loss of damage in the opening of the country like even the lawyers were like, can they, you know, and they were all sort of bury going back to the, you know, the footnotes and actually turns out turns out they did it. And I think, you know, I think one has to give credit to UAE for for an enormous amount of energy that they put and resources that they put into this cop, you know, definitely and I'm sure we'll talk about cop 29 later on and Azerbaijan. Definitely controversial to have, you know, a fossil fuel producing state as as as a host of a cop. I'm not entirely sure why since there is no virtue test to be a host of a cop right. But but it was very much always in the press and so on. And I think one thing that that I certainly felt is that they really put a huge effort into into the process. I mean, and a huge amount of resources behind it. So I think they do they do deserve credit and they made some smart, strategic decisions, like putting loss and damage on first. So we had something a bit positive bit of solidarity, almost $800 million of pledges, including $25 million from from Ireland. And, you know, I think it did it did start us off on on a good foot. But maybe a couple of points that are a little bit like as Catherine also did a little bit sort of thinking to the future. cop 29 is is is a climate finance cop is the climate finance cop, just like cop 28 was really a mitigation cop and cop 27 was was probably a loss and damage cop in the end. We didn't achieve anything else cop 27 very much. And, and I think, I think this is, this is really important. I think it's one of the areas where I think Ireland and Canada share a lot of of perspectives. And one of them is precisely this point about, you know, we just can't rely on the same traditional donors of climate finance, you know, public finance from the islands and Canada's of this world, and somehow tell ourselves that this is going to fill the gaps. I mean, if we just take adaptation, we don't even take mitigation we just take adaptation. The estimate is that we need 18 times more finance than we have right. We need more adaptation finance and the day after right you can just look at the window for more information, you know, in Ireland, I'm sure in Canada. The needs are going through the roof and we're already radically underfunded so we just can't rely on on the same old traditional donors and I think one area where Minister Ryan is extremely engaged is on this area of innovative sources and we had an EU. We had an agreement on this before COP that the EU would be lobbying for essentially the fossil fuel industry to be, you know, implicated in in climate finance and I think it didn't get as much. I suppose airtime or or you know we didn't we got some some good language on it a bit of sources in the final text from from COP 28 but not as much as we would have liked but I think we all know that the COP 29 is the big cup for for finance. And just to mention as well, adaptation, it got a few a few kind of positives at at COP 28. Again, not as much as we would like but I think there's some good stuff to build on there there is an agreement for example to have this ministerial dialogue and adaptation 2024 so so it's not bad and there's some there's some progress that you know that that we can we can kind of build on but again, it comes back to this point of, you know, we need to support developing countries for for their absolutely massive and growing adaptation needs but also for their green transition and for those green transitions to be just because the huge problems and I think we can all even see this from our own country when we've been transitioning away from Pete in the midlands, you know, these things are very difficult people are very wedded to, you know, the economy and the societies that have been built up around fossil fuels and then we can't just sort of, you know, pull people to to new areas without really giving them the support and the training and the resources and it's exactly the same in developing countries like coal in South Africa in, you know, Indonesia and so on so forth so we've got to be able to put the resources behind that and I think, you know, for adaptation and mitigation, I think the finance agenda has got to be the big the big focus for for this year and it'll certainly be a certainly a very big focus for us so that's probably more in the time and I forgot to look at my watch but but yeah, delighted delighted to have Catherine here I mean, maybe just to finish off by saying that, you know, we have a great deal in common also in we share a World Bank constituency maybe everybody may not be aware of that, but not only do we share a World Bank constituency between Ireland and Canada but we also have a bunch of small island states. So there's a very interesting within the finance conversation that we're both very involved in this whole area about reforming of the multilateral development banks and so on, where I think we have access to really great sort of frontline perspectives from from the Caribbean SIDS, and I think another another reason why we can do more together on the finance agenda. Thank you very much. And can I ask you just both briefly on this point I touch on at the outset, you know, the big event is every year. And there was some discussion certainly I picked up and you see it in some of the media as well and some of the other realities that I think I'll go you know that we're all aware and you more than any aware of the difficulty of obtaining agreement from whatever 198 countries, and as a big diplomatic effort concentrated in a short period of days as I'm just wondering though about the balance between the necessity to have the big event and then the process that continues right continues right through the year in any event, whether there isn't, in some people's minds anyway a case for maybe taking the focus off the annual event and try to get the world to see more and more as I'm sure more and more people do on countries do that this is an ongoing process. It's a, it's a great question and certainly for the people who organize logistics in Canada they they asked that question quite a bit. It does take, it does take a lot of people to coordinate all the different pieces required of a cop. But the value of having a big climate event every year is that it gives countries it gives people something to focus on something to push toward. And, you know, I know within Canada there's always a lot of thought about how can we position ourselves this year what ambition what what things can we be moving forward. You have good conversations with with like minded countries but other countries about what what is required this year, you know the client finance is a big one but looking at loss and damage last year to say you know if we actually do land this fund we're going to need funds to set it up so. So you think internally about how are we going to support that if we do end up with that decision so it really does help to to center activity and action toward, you know, a big event, and it also gives that opportunity for others for to hold your feet to the fire and and to put pressure on other countries to do more so I think as as as expensive as it as it is and as big as these are getting and we can talk about whether they need to be as big. It nevertheless still helps to to really focus countries and focus people on the urgency so I do see a lot of value with having these every year. Yeah. I mean one thing is we may be forced to have a smaller cup because apparently there's only 25,000 hotel rooms and back so we're all wondering you know there was almost 100,000 people in in in Dubai. And so so but I would certainly agree and I think domestically as well, the media hook of cop in in in our country and I'm sure in yours I think is is very helpful. I mean I think two other things on that I mean cop. Yes, it's about the negotiation but actually most of those people are not coming for the negotiation of the global stock take text etc etc be really small minority of us. Most people are coming for side events they're coming for declarations they're coming for launch of this initiative that initiatives and so on. I think there's an argument, you know, in terms of has it has it become kind of too, too big and too bloated but but I would agree with Catherine that it does provide a useful kind of a marker in the year I can tell you we'd never have agreed on loss and that we would still be discussing in the transitional committee. But I think your question also reminds me Alex of of another dimension of this which is that, you know, so many other organizations and bodies need to feed into the climate agenda. I mean the cop isn't really a very technical forum I mean if you look at the GST text, you know and you're not a climate person you'd be kind of you'd be looking at it for some time, and you wouldn't. It wouldn't make a great deal of sense probably you know it's a lot more technical that then people realize, but where, where we need a lot of support and Canada obviously is very key in this, the G seven, the G 20, the annual meetings of the World Bank, the IMF like there's so many different for the IEA in Paris, there's so many different fora that we need to implement some of the things that are sort of agreed as targets in cop. Climate finance is probably the area where that's most evident, you know we can talk about maritime levies and we can talk about all these things. But, but the cop doesn't have the mandate to do those kinds of things that needs ministers of finance and so on so I think that what's also important is how we interface, you know how the cop process interfaces with with a lot of these other processes that do happen during the year. Sure, just with advanced apologies again I unfortunately have to leave but I was going to invite Ambassador Murray perhaps to to, I think you were, you might have a question for our guests or an observation. Ambassador Morocco and if you'll excuse me I'll be gone by the time you finish your question I do apologize. So thank you Excellencies for your valuable insight on climate change globally the incremental nature of efforts to combat it, especially in vulnerable regions remains a challenge. Morocco a country significantly impacted by the climate change has demonstrated a state faced tasks to meet the sustainable energies green hydrating and global market integration. With an ambitious target of deriving 52% of its electricity from renewables by 2030. Morocco has successfully implemented concentrated solar power plants and wind farms nationwide. In collaboration with you and UK Morocco strategically plans to export clean energy and green hydro G. In the African context, Morocco takes the lead in regional initiatives, focusing on agricultural adaptation, sustainability and empowering young African climate leaders. Despite these commendable efforts to momentum of Africa's climate action is handed by limited involvement and funding. My question is, are there any specific actions undertaken or to be undertaken by Canada and Ireland to help to address climate change in Africa. Thank you. And thank you for your question and I just wanted to acknowledge the fact that you hosted COP 22nd right after Paris and congratulate you on that. That was my first COP my first experience in that in that big UN setting in Marrakesh, which was which was really well done. And it it really served to highlight Africa and the challenges in Africa as well. So thank you for for your question and for Canada. This is why climate finance is is absolutely critical and we doubled our climate finance a few years ago to 5.3 billion over five years and and with an emphasis on mitigation but adaptation we increased our percentage to 40% adaptation. Because we do recognize that countries in Africa, especially most vulnerable countries need more support on adaptation and need more grant financing to we heard that very loud and clear so with our next replenishment. Under the 5.3 we increased our grant portion also from 30% to 40% because we're we're listening to to the needs that are out there and trying to be responsive and we we channel a lot of our climate financing through multilateral development banks. And I think that's why the conversation that we were just having Sinead mentioned the work that we can do together to reform the banks so that more of what they are doing is focused on climate solutions at the same time as as the other important work that they're doing is absolutely critical. And we we are also supporting access to financing, which we know there have been a lot of issues with in in African countries as well at COP 28. I was highlighting the climate finance access network, and it's a group of specialty advisors that are implanted in countries that need to build capacity on how to access climate finance it's a very complex web. And lots of forms and and and we know it's difficult so that's a project that we were very pleased to continue to support to address those specific needs. We're looking forward to our next climate finance replenishment and learning lessons again from this current support about how we can be better at this. MDB reform is a big part of it, increasing access to finance increasing adaptation finance. So we're looking forward to having conversations about our current finance allotment and how we can improve with the next finance allotment coming forward so it's something that's very much in the front of our minds this year. And as Sinead was saying, it's going to be a key topic of conversation at COP 29 as we look at this new collective quantified goal as well. Thank you master. I won't repeat because a lot of a lot of my answer would be the same actually I mean most of our climate finance from Ireland is already going to Africa. I think you know very well ambassador it's our main kind of you know area of of engagement and and most of our climate finance about 80% already targets adaptation. The only little bit I will add is that I went to the Africa climate summit in Nairobi to accompany Minister Ryan and it was really really good. It was really good. It was good because this was back in the beginning of September. It was good because it really it really demonstrated the African ownership of this issue was not, you know, even the climate finance, you know, in terms of grand finance and so on was discussed it really wasn't the main point the main point was, you know, Africa is is open for business is already working on the green transition. And, you know, really kind of focusing on private sector investment actually, you know, sort of fair private sector investment not the crazy, you know, with the sort of crazy interest rates that we have at the moment where Africa is totally penalized as as you know, vis-a-vis the same people doing the same kind of say a solar project in in, you know, Ireland or Canada or the Netherlands or something like that. And so it was really focusing on, you know, African leadership very strong leadership by by Kenya. And I think I think it kind of changed the conversation in a really welcome way. So I think we're we're keen to to continue to, you know, to support that African led agenda and as well as as kind of continuing, you know, the support we gave on on adaptation in particular. Thanks so much, Dr. Washington. Thank you ambassador. It's always good to have you here. Are there other questions here before me in the audience I see one. Is there anything else? So to Fergo. So I'll start with the gentleman here. I'm sorry, the gentleman here and then yourself. I'll come back to you in the second round. Sorry, speakers are you happy to take two questions at a go just to get through. So yourself first, then I'll hand over to the lady in front of you. Thank you very much. This is a question for Ambassador Stewart. What can Canada's provincial governments do to help meet the nation's climate goals? Thank you. You just want to dance by yourself. My name is Patrick. Good to have you here. And then the lady in front here came, please. Thank you. Thank you. Gemma O'Reilly with nest and National Economic and Social Council. I'm just with the I guess with my optimistic hat on the good outcome on fossil fuels in the last cup. I was just wondering about, you know, I suppose strategies for turning that, you know, from nice words and on a piece of paper into something actionable. Whether that would be, I guess, incorporated in a more, I guess, process kind of way into the global stock taking future in terms of measuring outcomes in terms of even the loopholes seeing are the loopholes being implemented properly. A lot of ambiguity around the potential for CCS, I suppose. Even I wonder about the role of the IPCC to clarify what is the potential of the loopholes or what isn't. And then, if I may, mini second question, the area of capacity building. You know, we talk about mitigation cup, adaptation cup, you know, loss and damage cup. But, you know, capacity building is always the poor child, if you like. And I just wonder, you know, especially when you talk about climate finance, private climate finance. I mean, you know, we struggle ourselves, you know, with engaging private finance and the idea that we would expect, you know, developing countries to go from zero to 100. You know, in this area, when actually it's a journey we all need to be on. And there's a lot of capacity building, very in depth and broad capacity building required there. I think it could do a bit more focus. Thanks a million Gemma. It's great to have Nesq here. We don't get enough questions about regional, provincial government in Canada. So let's start with that from Patrick. We'll start with Ambassador Stewart. Yeah, thank you for that. So in Canada, we very much need to be collaborating, cooperating with our prevent our provinces in order to address climate change. So the first pan Canadian framework which was introduced in 2016 was the result of almost a year of in depth discussions and collaboration with our provinces, territories and indigenous communities. We had a approach, a climate plan, an approach to climate, which, which had maximum buy in because in Canada we have different jurisdictional responsibilities and we all need to be in on this in order to be able to tackle climate change. And a lot of provinces do have net zero targets in place by 2050. A lot of them have their, their own planning. But as you can appreciate, we have lots of good ongoing dialogue about our approach on climate change. We have net zero by 2050 in our legislation in Canada. So it's, it is a law to reach a net zero by 2050. We also must put together a climate plan for Canada. And that involves consultation with stakeholders, but with provinces and territories so that we can develop a plan that we can all work together toward not easy. We have lots of how to over 140 different measures that we are implementing together with with provinces and territories and communities. And it's a constant, it's a constant work in progress. That's the reality in Canada. And we've got some good success stories on our work towards zero emission vehicles that all sales of zero zero emission vehicles by 2030 will be zero emission vehicles 100%. And we also are working on clean electricity right regulations. Right now, Canada is 85% all 85% of our energy comes from clean energy. And we're moving to 100% by 2035. We can't do that without cooperation and collaboration with the provinces given the jurisdictional issues there. And then we have carbon pricing regime in Canada as well, which the provinces, many provinces have their own system of carbon pricing where they don't the federal government comes in and has imposed its own system which includes a federal surcharge on fossil fuels. And also an output, output based pricing system so it's a little complicated, but all to say we have a we have a carbon pricing system which applies across our country gives flexibility to provinces to implement the pricing system that works for them. And where they ask for the federal to cover government to come in or where they don't have a system the federal government comes in so lots of things I more more I could talk about there but just gives you a little bit of a sense of the work that we have to do within Canada. To put together a climate plan and and work to to get us to where we need to be. Do you want me to talk to the capacity building question keep. Keep going yeah I don't know if you have much to say about about financial government agenda's questions. Yeah, so lots, lots in your question there but I think the capacity building one is certainly a focus of our climate finance and I mentioned the climate finance access network as an example of building local capacity to be able to access climate finance. And we've also supported initiatives to build capacity within countries to be able to develop NDCs their nationally determined contributions, their adaptation plans, because we recognize that some countries are much further behind than others, and that there's that need to develop capacities within governments to be able to do what what it is that they they need to do. We also as a bilingual nation, recognize the challenges of francophone countries, because a lot of the banks give their instructions in English and so I think for anglophones it's hard enough to try to understand and complete the requirements but for countries francophone countries to we recognize that there's a real capacity limit there so we do a lot of work with le francophonie to be able to help out there. On the fossil fuel outcome, you know it, it is, it is a very strong commitment to contribute to global efforts to transition away from fossil fuels in the energy sector. And Canada takes that very seriously and, in fact, we, we show a lot of leadership on how to do that I mentioned carbon pricing. That's one way of putting a price on pollution it is not free to pollute in Canada. And, and that's one way that we are helping to drive down emissions by putting in place our clean electricity regulations which I mentioned 100% clean electricity by by 2035 that's another way to encourage the drive down of emissions. We have tax incentives for carbon capture and storage in Canada. And we also have different different funds to support innovation to support clean technology. So we like to show by doing and because it's not an easy thing in Canada. The fossil fuel sector is a key part of our economy. We are a major emitter and we know we need to do more. And so it's hard work. It requires a lot of coordination and collaboration with our provinces with indigenous communities. But we like to talk about it because it's not easy. It wouldn't be, it wouldn't be ambitious if it was easy. So we take that commitment very seriously we were very happy with that outcome at at COP 28. And I think we want to continue to demonstrate, including our coal phase out coal for power by 2030 in Canada so lots of things that we want to share and talk about in addition to driving international initiatives to get us there too and just quickly. We started up with the UK the Powering Pass Coal Alliance. And we now have over 185 members of that alliance committed to phasing out coal for power use at COP 28 we were happy to see the US sign on to that and the UAE it's gaining momentum. So that's why I was disappointed that why I said earlier I was disappointed we didn't see the phase out of coal because I think we've got huge momentum on that but we're getting there and I think we've started this international initiative which helps give the visibility to that. We also started another international initiative called the global carbon pricing challenge. And again, it's encouraging other countries to to to demonstrate the impact and of carbon pricing as an effective policy tool which drives down emissions helps with affordability and promotes innovation so we're hoping to Ireland will will want to join the global carbon pricing challenge we were we are now with 11 partners. It's a very new that initiative that Prime Minister Trudeau started at COP 26 so we're we're looking for new members but I think these these initiatives help to raise the visibility globally of some very valuable tools we can use that will help to drive down emissions. The view from Ireland. Yeah, I mean, I suppose, just on on on that might be interesting for people to know that we, we joined the climate club at at COP, and you might wonder what that is kind of a big enough, big enough name but it's it's basically it's partly, you know, kind of related I suppose to to I think and it's an initiative to, I think, and it kind of a sort of a German pushed G seven initiative, maybe the way that it's, it's, it's come to us but I suppose it's another one of these initiatives how can, you know, coming back to that negotiated part of COP that we talked about earlier, you know, how can a certain group of sort of first mover champion countries. And in this case, it's it's looking at kind of, you know, industrial decarbonization, you know, how can a certain number of sort of allies like raise the bar on on on some of these kinds of issues and work together on standards and, and, you know, push things forward maybe and hard to evade sectors and that kind of thing. But I suppose that that's, that's just sort of an aside to say that I think, you know, we also have a carbon price that we hold very, very dear so so I'm sure it'll be good to talk to you about that initiative. And, but just on on Gemma's questions I mean I think, Gemma and knowing your background, I know they're also kind of sneaky suggestions as well as questions so I and I do actually agree with them. You know, in addition to, to what Catherine mentioned on capacity building we did also manage a COP to get agreement on the host of the Santiago network for capacity building on loss and damage so I think there is yet there are. Similarly, we support you know the NEC partnership and global network for adaptation planning and things like that so totally agree a capacity building I mean if we look at our own country as you say Gemma we see the enormous need for you know just a whole mindset shift and a whole shift of how we, how we do economy and societies is nothing short of that so so why should it be different and and and you know for countries with vastly fewer resources we need to help them out and I think on the on the strategies. It's true I mean I'm not I'm not sure just on like I'm not sure for example the mitigation work program. It has been agreed now at COP that that will will continue and have a couple of meetings this year so whether they can you know try to to do a little bit of what you're suggesting in terms of making some of those outcomes measurable I'm not sure but but I could, I could, I could ask around a bit for you, but but maybe just one other point that you reminded me of there is on carbon capture and storage. We are going to need a certain amount of carbon capture and storage I mean I know it has has a bad name and people were concerned that you know UAE and maybe Azerbaijan we're going to sort of, you know, have it as a sort of a silver bullet. Unfortunately as we've let it left it too late to not have a need for some carbon capture and storage so, but but it is just about making sure that it's restricted to the absolute, you know, hardest to abate sectors otherwise it's just as you know, and incredibly incredibly fun cost efficient. Yes. Thanks. We're unfortunately against the clock. So, there's a question here from further McNamara and the gentlemen next year if you could both be as brisk as you can and the questions. Thank you, Marie. I'm further McNamara and I co chair the climate and energy group here at the Institute. Another time in my life I was vice president of the Alberta electric system operator running the electric reading Calgary. And because of that connection and the fondness I have for the province I follow the Alberta premier who's been making a lot of noise very recently, raising the rhetoric and discussing the climate change and the impact on the province. It's sort of got to the level now where it's almost like the national energy program of Trudeau senior sort of debate between the two. And I just wondered about your comments on that. Thank you. Hi, David Regan. I'm the chief executive of concern concerns a NGO in our underlarge NGO. And first of all, congratulations to the speakers on the progress that was made in top somebody working in the, in the sector in Africa it is usually hardly to see that support coming through it really is is very good at a multilateral level. But we also face a very stark reality have you seen the situation Somalia and Kenya in Bangladesh in Chad it is it's really really worrying people losing their livelihoods on a major scale. And as you suggested to me that essentially what were radically insufficient response in terms of finance. And the question is, in terms of moving that forward it feels like cop is never going to move fast enough because it's such a such a universal forum. Is there some other form of leadership where greater moves could be made by smaller subset of countries and I'm aware of some political wins south of Canada which aren't particularly positive. But you wonder how do you pull together a group who really want to show leadership in in this area at a time when the needs are dramatic and quite frightening. Good job here as well privileged ambassador again so. Yeah, I'm well I'm glad somebody in the audience is following politics so closely. There is definitely a leader that in Alberta right now who's very much railing against the efforts of the federal government it's interesting for those of you who want to read about Canadian politics it's an interesting read. I think it I think it illustrates that none of this is easy. And when it comes to energy transition, you need to bring everybody along, and we we've had this experience with coal phase out in Canada. We established a task force that went into the coal communities and spoke to the businesses spoke to the workers. It helped to you know all of all of the people around the industry that would be impacted by the phase out of coal to talk about a plan forward. And I think, you know, with with fossil fuels and the, the agreement that came out of cop on the transition away from fossil fuels. It's important to note that you know that needs to all happen in a just orderly and equitable way. And I think Canada feels very strongly about bringing everybody along. And with the initiatives that we're introducing to to reduce emissions we're not talking about reducing production. That's a provincial jurisdiction. We're not talking about federal government responsibility to to reduce emissions and so this is where the, the, the political play out is is happening right now. But I would, I would just note that there's a, there's actually a good ongoing dialogue that the federal government has with Alberta in moving forward on a lot of the initiatives that we that we've been putting forward including reducing our emissions on methane in the oil and gas sector by 75% by 2030 the clean electricity regulations that have been introduced there's also a good ongoing dialogue on that so there's a political level play out for sure as you've noted, but I think there's a lot that continues to happen in in good cooperation and collaboration. When it comes to your question about how can we work and do things faster. It's, it's a great question because multilateralism can be very frustrating in terms of in terms of the pace and I think this is where Canada looks to find partners. You know, I look at the global methane pledge that the US and the EU started to give visibility of the value of reducing methane emissions and to push countries on supporting developing countries in their efforts to reduce methane, but also sharing innovations, sharing best practices in agriculture sector and the land and waste sector, oil and gas sector on how we can drive down methane emissions we don't have to wait for the multilateral system to sort of, you know, move that forward. We can join initiatives to share these experience that's like the powering past coal alliance I was mentioning the global carbon pricing challenge, these are these are smaller initiatives where, you know, like minded countries come together that support a policy that can share and move it forward under the G seven as well we've done some work on the global shield to to also support early warning systems so I think. You know, there's a lot we can do in different different for there's a lot we can do bilaterally as well with different cooperation initiatives with different countries so there are other ways to to address issues in a more, you know, faster in a faster way. Thanks master final words to you. Yeah, I mean I would just, David, I have nothing to say about Alberta sorry about just David on on your question I mean I'm, I'm, I completely agree. I mean if you're waiting for cops to sort out finance you can you can forget about it. I think that we have some good initiatives percolating and you know France had that very good. You know it wasn't just climate finance but I think that's fair enough right developing countries are dealing with with all sorts of development finance challenges and climate finance is just a part of that. I think there was a very strong climate finance and debt focus to the meeting that President Macron hosted in June there's all the work of me and Motley and Barbados and mentioned the Africa climate summit, President Ruto, there's a new commission on kind of taxation and how you know how you can get some of these flows to support climate finance a little bit like what we were talking about earlier with innovative sources so very much as Catherine is saying there are these sort of champion groups of countries that are coming together. I think on the climate finance side, you know Ireland is is is definitely we're we sort of have the two feet in in there. I doubt you need to be told that because every time Minister Ryan speaks I'm pretty sure you hear him talking about about climate finance is going to need for this this scale up and this multiplicity of sources so I expect this year and I really hope this year we can get some momentum on that again using using the fact that cup 29 is going to be very focused on on on climate finance but not depending on cup 29 to solve our problems on sources but but hopefully using it as a kind of a deadline to to move some of these other initiatives forward. I think our speakers most sincerely unfortunately we are a time I do have a profound sense you've only scraped the surface and there's a bunch of great questions I'm afraid just to Professor Alan Matthews and to Michael O'Brien and others online we haven't had a chance to get to your questions but we'll pass those questions on to the speakers so we have them. I think it's always fun to know what questions you inspire and people if they're easy we can email answers. There you go isn't that a lovely offer I also just want to say obviously since you're welcome to Ambassador Stuart your first time in Ireland so I have a lovely time but I just want to celebrate the great relations you have with our colleagues in the Canadian Embassy Ambassador Smoyth, Jackie Ellis and Dave Kiffa they're great supporters of the Institute and it's just a real pleasure to renew our collaboration so I hope we'll continue. Canada has to be one of the most Irish places outside of Ireland. I hope we can continue to need to work on solving problems together so if you could just give a big boost to the speakers.