The Republic's aid programme for developing countries is being reorientated to incorporate concerns about environmental protection and sustainable development, according to a new policy document published yesterday evening.
Launched with the backing of former president Mary Robinson, it commits Irish Aid to sustainable development and recognises the "vital role of the environment" in combating poverty and meeting the UN's millennium development goals.
Ahead of the launch, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Conor Lenihan said that up to 40 per cent of aid money was "actually put in jeopardy" by degradation of the environment, some of it caused by climate change.
Climate change would be felt most severely in the developing world, he said. For people living in dire poverty, "sustainable development is the last thing on their mind", but Irish Aid intended that it would become "mainstream".
The new policy hopes to tackle some of the scepticism about the State's aid programme, he added. "It's up to us as donors to prove them wrong - that aid can be effective and that Ireland can be a good donor as well as a big donor."
Mr Lenihan welcomed the initiative of the newly formed Stop Climate Chaos coalition - which includes major Irish aid agencies and environmental groups - to raise awareness of the impact of climate change on developing countries.
As the new policy document notes, "the poorest are most vulnerable to environmental pollution, resource degradation and natural disasters", and climate change "risks destroying lives and livelihoods due to floods, drought and severe storms".
According to the document, effective responses would "require action across the entire Irish Aid programme and close co-ordination with national and international partners. This new policy will ensure that environmental concerns remain at the heart of Irish Aid's work."
The document, entitled Environment Policy for Sustainable Development, envisages that Irish Aid will contribute directly to environmentally sustainable projects in developing countries, while developing its own capacity in the environmental field.
Since 2005, the State has committed more than €2 million a year to addressing climate change in developing countries, including programmes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, assist adaption measures, conserve biodiversity and halt land degradation.
Mary Robinson, president of the New York-based Ethical Globalisation Initiative, said other donors "need to do what Irish Aid has done: think through their responsibilities in relation to environmental sustainability so that the policy is well thought out".
The publication of the document was announced at a reception at the Department of Foreign Affairs to mark Ireland's hosting of an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development workshop on the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.
