The Taoiseach and US president Joe Biden have met on the margins of the Cop26 summit.
Micheál Martin said President Biden reaffirmed his support for the Good Friday Agreement during their encounter in Glasgow.
Mr Biden, who has family roots in Ireland, has often spoke about the importance of preserving peace on the island of Ireland.
In meetings with UK prime minister Boris Johnson at the G7 summit in Cornwall in June, Mr Biden stressed the importance of protecting the Good Friday Agreement amid disputes over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Mr Biden had held a “candid discussion” with the British prime minister.
Delighted to meet @POTUS at #COP26
President Biden reaffirmed to me the United States’ full support for the Good Friday Agreement. pic.twitter.com/GQJ13WWaA3Advertisement— Micheál Martin (@MichealMartinTD) November 1, 2021
More than 100 world leaders have been meeting at the start of a two-week summit in Glasgow aimed at producing agreed policies to combat climate change.
Speaking from Glasgow today, Mr Biden acknowledged that the US and other developed nations bear much of the responsibility for climate change, and said actions taken this decade to contain global warming will be decisive in preventing future generations from suffering.
“None of us can escape the worst that is yet to come if we fail to seize this moment,” Mr Biden declared at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow.
The president treated the already visible crisis for the planet – flooding, volatile weather, droughts and wildfires – as a unique opportunity to reinvent the global economy.
Standing before world leaders gathered at the UN climate summit in Scotland, he sought to portray the enormous costs of limiting carbon emissions as a chance to create jobs by transitioning to renewable energy and electric vehicles.
Paris Agreement
Yet he also apologised for former president Donald Trump’s decision to leave the Paris Agreement and the role the US and other wealthy countries played in contributing to climate change.
“Those of us who are responsible for much of the deforestation and all of the problems we have so far,” Mr Biden said, have “overwhelming obligations” to the poorer nations that account for few of the emissions yet are paying a price as the planet has grown hotter.
As for Mr Trump’s action, he said: “I shouldn’t apologise, but I do apologise for the fact the United States, the last administration, pulled out of the Paris Accords and put us sort of behind the eight ball a little bit.” - Additional reporting from Press Association
