Jonathan Walsh, CBC Cork student, wins the ActionTalks Speech Writing Competition

March 31, 2022

Jonathan Walsh a student at Christian Brothers College Cork has been chosen as the winner in ActionTalks, which is a national speech writing competition run by ActionAid, open to all students aged 14 to 17 year olds. Jonathan will receive a €500 One4all Voucher, and his teacher, Edward Newman, will receive a €100 One4All voucher.

After being chosen from over 130 entrants, and then winning the regional finals, six students delivered their speeches in historic Woodquay Dublin this week to a panel of expert judges. It was the first in person final of the competition since 2019. Students competing on the day included Anna McSweeney and Jonathan Walsh from Munster, Elle Walsh Giguere and Caoimhe Spain from Leinster, and Aine Gilhooly and Hannah McNally who won the Connacht/Ulster heat of the competition.

All the finalists displayed great skill and clarity in conveying their message across to the audience. However, Jonathan was chosen as the winner, by displaying a great understanding and analysis on the issue of vaccine inequity, delivered with great passion.

Judges on the day were: CEO of AkiDwA, which is a national network of migrant women living in Ireland, Dr Salome Mbugua; former MEP and Lord Mayor of Dublin and current Policy & Advocacy Manager with the Irish Development Education Association Emer Costello; Assistant General Secretary with the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland and Board Member with ActionAid Ireland Moira Leydon; and Programme Coordinator with ActionAid Ireland Erick Onduru from Kenya.

The competition, now in its eighth year, aims to engage young people with global issues, including gender equality and sustainable development, and challenging them to use their voice to create positive change. This year the competition focused on vaccine inequity globally, unpaid care work and violence against women.

ActionAid provides long term support and focuses on the human rights of women and children in developing countries, so they can overcome the obstacles holding them back. The approach is to empower local women to take control over their own lives. Irish Aid, Department of Foreign Affairs, funds an ActionAid Women’s Rights programme in Kenya, Nepal and Ethiopia. We use this funding to work with marginalised communities in an effort to prevent gender-based violence and support women gain an independent income.

CEO of ActionAid Ireland Karole Balfe said:

“The standard and quality of the speeches submitted in this year’s competition was incredible. It was wonderful to see so many students across the country take part and share their views on global issues so articulately, and with such passion. It was truly inspiring, and I can safely say, I feel hopeful for the future with these young people. Jonathan displayed a true confidence in bringing his message on vaccine inequity across, and gave the audience a lot to think about. We are delighted to announce Johnathon as the winner of ActionTalks. Jonathan’s hard work is truly appreciated, and he should be very proud.”

You can read more about the ActionAid Women’s Rights programme here https://actionaid.dev10.effectordev.ie/womens-rights-programme/

Photo Credit: Jonathan Walsh. (Maxwell Photography)

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.