Safe Cities Round Table in Dublin

May 20, 2016

International Safe Cities Day

To mark International Safe Cities Day and as part of our Safe Cities Campaign, ActionAid held Working to End Gender Based Violence, a roundtable discussion on the issues of gender based violence faced by women across the world on 19th May.

Women’s Rights in Palestine

Raghda Daboub, Women’s Rights Coordinator for ActionAid Palestine spoke about the experience of Palestinian women who are suffering from double oppression. Women are the most adversely affected by war and 40% of women in Gaza have been exposed to gender based violence, harassment, rape, a lack of sanitation facilities or inadequate food supplies.

As Raghda remarked, “Women’s rights become invisible amongst the conflict”. In order to bring women’s rights back into the spotlight ActionAid Palestine is working with women at the grassroots level to empower them to take leadership roles to improve the public services in their communities.

Women’s Rights in Vietnam

Do Hanh Chi, Women’s Rights and Education Advisor for ActionAid Vietnam discussed the influence of the International Safe Cities Campaign in Vietnam.

Due to its expanding economy, Vietnam is undergoing rapid urbanisation. A study conducted by ActionAid Vietnam revealed that 87% of women surveyed had experienced some form of sexual harassment in a public place. These results revealed that Vietnam’s cities were not safe places, especially for women and girls, and prompted ActionAid Vietnam to join the global movement for Safe Cities for Women. In 2014 they used the data from their survey to request the local government in Ho Chi Minh City take action to combat the issue of public violence against women. This request was a success and the authorities decided to install CCTV on all public buses. These cameras act to safeguard against sexual harassment, improving the safety of women and girls.

Women’s Rights in Ireland

Jennifer Gavin from the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre gave an Irish perspective on gender based violence. In four out of five cases of sexual abuse in Ireland, the person is known to the victim. To address this issue, the DRCC’s AskConsent campaign seeks to start a conversation about what consent means, to eliminate, confusion, grey areas and blurred lines and reduce the number of negative and unwanted sexual experiences.

Clear Message

The speakers had a clear message – while Gender Based Violence may take different forms, it is a global issue that affects us all. As long as it is tolerated, gender based violence will continue to happen in our homes, and on our streets. It is the responsibility of all of us as citizens to speak out, hold our governments accountable and expect our cities to be safe places for women and girls.

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.