Academics say climate change must be election issue

Almost 30 leading academics have challenged RTÉ to quiz party leaders on climate change during next week’s televised leaders’ debate after the subject was ignored in the TV3/Newstalk event.

The 29 environmentalists, engineers and political scientists from seven universities say despite being the most critical threat facing the country, climate change is not being addressed in the main parties’ manifestos.

They are calling for a citizens’ convention on climate change to be established by the next government, similar to the Constitutional Convention from 2012-2014, or the citizen’s convention Fine Gael has pledged on repealing the eighth amendment.