TAOISEACH Micheál Martin has said a "growing momentum" to tackle climate change was emerging while speaking during a visit to New York.
As British Prime Minister Boris Johnson prepared to discuss the climate crisis with President Joe Biden at the White House and in New York, the taoiseach also addressed the issue and warned that the world is "facing into the abyss".
Speaking to reporters ahead of chairing the UN Security Council on Thursday as part of Ireland's presidency of the body and addressing the UN General Assembly the following day, Mr Martin welcomed the UN addresses on climate.
"One senses that given recent extreme weather events there is a growing momentum to doing better than we have been on the climate change issue," he said.
Meanwhile, the taoiseach also praised the president for his "consistent" stance regarding the UK's approach to the Northern Ireland Protocol. He said he believed President Biden would tell Mr Johnson it was important for the UK to resolve the issue through engagement with the EU.
"That is the clear message he has been giving to people," Mr Martin said.
On Tuesday, the taoiseach also paid a visit to the 9/11 memorial site in lower Manhattan, where he read the inscribed names of Irish people who were among the almost 3,000 people to die in the World Trade Centre attack.
He laid a white rose at the names of the six Irish-born victims at the memorial, including that of Cork woman Ruth Clifford McCourt, who died on-board United Flight 175 alongside her four-year-old daughter Juliana.