Ireland’s new climate justice President
Catherine Connolly understands that the well-being of the people is linked to the ecological health of the place.
As Ireland celebrates the inauguration of our 10th President this week, world leaders and governments are convening in Belem, Brazil for the Cop30 international climate negotiations.
While expectations are low for transformative climate justice on the world stage, here in Ireland we can expand our ambition because President Catherine Connolly is a climate justice president.
Climate justice is about transformative change toward more just, healthy and stable futures for all. Climate justice broadens the climate agenda beyond the narrow emissions reductions mandate.
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.
Catherine Connolly understands this and her priorities are climate justice priorities. President Connolly sees the connections that are core to climate justice.
She knows neutrality is a climate justice issue. The right to housing is a climate justice issue. The cost-of-living crisis is a climate justice issue. Irish unity is a climate justice issue. Speaking the Irish language is a climate justice issue. And envisioning a better future for the island of Ireland is a climate justice issue.
Climate justice resists the disproportionate power of large multinational companies, and prioritises the needs of people and communities. Climate justice demands that decarbonisation and emissions reductions are linked to transformative public investments in housing, healthcare, public transport, care-work, education, and other basic services that every community needs and deserves.
Climate justice recognises that local, regenerative and community-focused production of food, energy and other necessities are essential to restoring ecological health, biodiversity and human well-being across the island of Ireland. Climate justice requires us to stand in solidarity against violent oppression, militarisation and coloniality.
Unfortunately, most of Ireland’s current climate policies do not embrace climate justice principles. Instead many of the government’s current climate policies focus narrowly on emissions reduction and decarbonisation without considering equity, justice and the urgent needs facing communities.
This short-sighted approach to climate action has been counterproductive in part because it relies on blaming and shaming individual people and their choices. These policies continue to be ineffective in achieving the deep societal and economic transformation that is urgently needed.
Current climate policies focus too much on empowering well-off households to make changes by installing solar panels and buying EVs while neglecting the growing energy burdens and increasing climate vulnerabilities of most people. By ignoring the injustices and inequities, these policies are dangerous and harmful because they have been leaving most people behind.
The lack of investment in marginalised households and vulnerable communities is polarising. Climate action that focuses narrowly on emissions without connecting to the urgent needs of communities and households will never work. And it has contributed to anger, frustration and resentment in communities across the country.
The reason Catherine won over 63% of the vote is because she effectively linked many different climate justice issues to a vision of a better future and a unified Ireland. Throughout the campaign, she acknowledged the climate crisis and the ecological devastation across the island of Ireland.
But rather than defending the existing ineffective climate policies and perpetuating the government’s narrow way of framing climate action, she demonstrated how climate justice is about reclaiming an integrated vision of a more healthy, stable and just future for the island of Ireland. She understands that the well-being of the people is linked to the ecological health of the place.
President Connolly’s climate justice leadership is desperately needed on the world stage right now.
Building on the powerful and transformative climate justice role that former President of Ireland Mary Robinson continues to have in international climate policy, the presidency of Catherine Connolly is an opportunity for the island of Ireland to demonstrate an expansive and inclusive approach to climate that centres people, place and our interconnected futures.
- Jennie C Stephens is Professor of Climate Justice at the ICARUS Climate Research Centre at Maynooth University and co-convenor of the Climate Justice Universities Union
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