Speech by President Connolly at An Taisce seminar on climate change
Tailors' Hall, 19 November 2025
A cháirde,
Táim buíoch bheith anseo inniu i Taisce, An t-Iontaobhas Náisiúnta d'Éireann. Ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a ghabháil le Gary Freemantle, CEO de Taisce anseo in oifigí Taisce i Halla na Táilliúirí sna Saoirsí anseo i mBaile Átha Cliath, áit atá báite i stair agus cultúr.
An Taisce, founded in 1946, is one of this country’s most important not-for-profit organisation, one that, amongst other things, campaigns with passion and integrity for the built and natural heritage areas, and for environmental education. I am delighted that you have organised this important seminar today entitled, ‘Snapshots on climate change and its impacts on our welfare’.
Climate change poses our greatest global challenge, an existential threat to our civilisation’s future. As President, I want to use the Office I hold to promote awareness, education and inspire action, using my voice and the platform of the Presidency to highlight the urgency of climate action, to support communities, scientists, and activists working for change, and to celebrate the deep connection between the Irish people and the natural world.
In doing so, I hope to play my part in the achieving of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal Number 13: “take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts” – which recognises that education in particular is pivotal in achieving this global objective.
The recent 2025 Annual Review of the Climate Change Advisory Council has stated that the time for procrastination is over. It singles out the transport and agriculture sectors, which together account for 55 percent of Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions, as failing to make the required cuts. The Council is calling for "increased expenditure on public transport ensuring efficient, reliable and timely services, increased grants for less expensive electric vehicles and the rapid implementation of a demand management strategy to help drive down emissions in this sector".
With taxpayers subsidising the fossil fuel industry by €4.7 billion in 2024, an increase of 63 percent when compared to 2021, it is abundantly clear that we must decarbonise and do so with the greatest urgency.
Across the world, it is the poorest communities and those who contribute the least, who are suffering most, losing their homes, their livelihoods and, in many cases, their lives.
At every level, we have failed to give the climate emergency the sustained attention, focus, and action it deserves. For example, we know this from the forecasts by the Climate Change Advisory Council which indicate that Ireland could be liable for fines of between €8 billion and €26 billion as a result of the likelihood that the country will overshoot its legally binding emissions targets between 2026-2030.
As thousands take to the streets of Belém to call for action during crucial COP-30 summit negotiations, I urge those in positions of power to come together for humanity’s sake to agree the necessary scale of action required so that the symbolic 1.5-degree Celsius warming limit will not be breached. We must not allow this year’s COP to be a showcase for fossil fuel companies.
We have a moral duty to future generations to act now, to protect our shared home. Transformative action is required, action that places environmental responsibility and climate justice at the heart of everything we do. This is not simply about carbon budgets or a focus on greenhouse gas emissions, it is about fairness, the quality of life we leave behind, and the kind of country we want to build together.
As Professor of Climate Justice at Maynooth University, Jennie Stephens, stated in a recent article in the Irish Examiner:
From a climate justice perspective, the climate crisis is not a scientific problem to be solved with technocratic solutions. Rather, the climate crisis is a symptom of bigger structural and systemic problems that are concentrating wealth and power among large corporate interests that are increasingly influencing our democratic processes.”
We must see the issue of climate change and biodiversity loss as a core issue of social justice, of climate justice.
Climate justice advocates that decarbonisation is linked to substantial state investment in all our public services – housing, healthcare, public transport, care-work, education, and other basic services that every community needs and deserves.
Climate justice encourages a local and community-based production of food, energy and other necessities, an approach that fosters buy-in across all of society and is essential to restoring ecological health, biodiversity and human wellbeing across the island of Ireland.
Climate justice also requires us to stand in solidarity against violent oppression, militarism and colonialism, to offer support to those vulnerable and marginalised, not just at home, but around our shared world.
Just transition is a fundamental requirement. Central to this is understanding that energy poverty is a growing issue for so many households who face growing energy burdens and increasing climate vulnerabilities.
Above all, we need to empower people so that they may have agency and be equipped with the knowledge and skills to act as agents and drivers of change, to show ingenuity, but also be politically engaged.
Climate education must also encompass emotional and values-based learning, one that acknowledges feelings like fear, anxiety and the sense of being overwhelmed by the gravity and magnitude of the climate problem that faces us now, but one that also develops values that support solidarity and a just transition.
We must also ensure that climate change does not further disrupt education, especially for the most vulnerable students in the poorest regions of the world where education is a lifeline to build a more sustainable future for them and their communities.
I am heartened to see developments underway in the Irish formal curriculum development, creating new subjects, such as the Leaving Certificate subject on ‘Climate Action and Sustainable Development’.
May I commend initiatives such as An Taisce’s Green Schools programme, to which 90 percent of all schools are now subscribed, which encourages long-term environmental action within schools and the wider community.
We need more programmes aimed at communities so that they feel empowered to take action, building on programmes already started such as the Community Climate Action Programme which provides funding and support for community-based climate projects and local action.
Perhaps the most fundamental challenge for us all in dealing with climate change is the necessity for leadership. As President, I will do everything in my power to keep this issue at the top of our national and international agenda.
Our wellbeing as a people is fundamentally connected to the planet’s wellbeing.
Let us work together to bring about an inclusive just transition to a climate-safe world, one that leaves nobody behind.
Do chách anseo inniu atá i mbun na hoibre riachtanaí seo, is féidir liom mo thacaíocht mar Uachtarán a chinntiú.
To all of you here today engaged in this critical work, I can promise you my support mar Uachtaráin.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.