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President Higgins highlights need for action on Climate Change

Published: Fri 6th Mar, 2020 | 11:28

“The principles of climate justice require this generation, knowing that climate change will have devastating effects on future generations, not to violate the interests of those generations to come and to avoid causing them unnecessary suffering. Just as we owe a debt to those who are the victims of past exploitation, we owe a debt to those who might be future victims of our actions or inactions now." 

- President Higgins, October 2015

 

President Michael D. Higgins has long advocated for urgent action to combat climate change, stating that climate change is the "most pressing existential crisis facing us all as a global community".

In his meetings with world leaders, and in his public speeches, the President has argued that all States, and all citizens, have a moral obligation to ensure a transition to a low-carbon society. Such a transition will not only require change at personal and household level, but also a radically different way of organising our society. The President has therefore called for a paradigm shift in economic policies, that incorporates the 'radicalism' of climate action, and that integrates the concerns for the economy, ecology and society.

 

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