Directors of ActionAid in Ireland and the US on three questions Taoiseach Leo Varadkar must ask US President Joe Biden during their Washington meeting to mark St. Patrick’s Day

March 13, 2024

The scale of suffering and violence in Gaza is horrific. In just five months, 31,000 people, 70% women and children, have been brutally killed. Around 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes. Children are now dying from starvation due to lack of aid, and famine is imminent.

The reality is that all of this is man-made and entirely avoidable. The role the U.S. has played is unconscionable, as the current administration has not only expressed unconditional support for Israel, but is also sending weapons and requesting additional funding to finance and sustain the siege in Gaza.

No civilian, Israeli or Palestinian, deserves to live in fear for their lives. The often cited ‘right to self-defence’ is not a legal pass that frees Israel from its obligations under international humanitarian law. The disproportionate response by the Israeli government to the brutal events of October 7^th should not amount to the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.

The senseless and inhumane killings and cycle of violence must stop.

This week, the annual St. Patrick’s Day “greening” of Washington is overshadowed by the senseless violence, death and starvation in Gaza. This is a week when Ireland has unique access to the U.S administration. While there will be the traditional handing over of the shamrock, receptions and parties, straight talking also needs to be happen. Lives depend on it.

As a country that knows the horror of famine from its own history, the war on Gaza must be firmly put on the table when Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, meets with U.S. President Joe Biden, in the Oval office tomorrow (Friday March 15^th).

There are three fundamental questions that the Taoiseach must ask President Biden:

The U.S. proposal for a temporary ceasefire ‘as soon as practical’ is insufficient to addressing this crisis that worsens by the minute. Will President Biden push Israel to agree to an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza?

Talk of temporary ports and food aid air drops into Gaza are merely elaborate distractions that skirt around the inevitable. Will President Biden put pressure on Israel to allow unfettered, unimpeded full scale humanitarian aid into Gaza as a matter of urgency?

The US military is supporting Israel’s reign of terror on Gaza. Will President Biden stop sending military support to prop up Israel’s campaign in Gaza?

The people of Gaza have endured enough horror. The Taoiseach and the plethora of senior Irish Government members and officials in America for the annual St. Patrick’s Day celebrations must raise these questions at the multiple official and unofficial meetings that will be taking place.

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.

Directors of ActionAid in Ireland and the US on three questions Taoiseach Leo Varadkar must ask US President Joe Biden during their Washington meeting to mark St. Patrick’s Day

There are three fundamental questions that the Taoiseach must ask President Biden:

The Profit Driving the Crisis

The Global Human Impact

The Risk of Inaction

About This Research

Summary of Recommendations

Further reading

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