Trinity College Dublin’s Students’ Union (TCDSU) is due to take part in the Dublin climate march on November 29.
The march is part of a Global Climate March taking place that day ahead of the United Nations’ Paris Climate Conference on November 30, at which world leaders will meet to start negotiating the next global climate deal. People in cities around the world will march to push world leaders to commit to tackling climate change.
Speaking to Trinity News, Cheryl Notaro of TCD Environment Society said that the march “is a platform from which TCD students and all can make their presence be known, be part of a global movement and begin adapting their minds to more positive energy renewables.”
She said that it is an opportunity for “current students, who may be our future politicians, councilors, government officials, policy makers and educators, to start the process now of the transition to a better kind of economy.”
According to Lynn Ruane, TCDSU president, the march is significant because it will get people to engage with the issue of climate change. She told Trinity News that: “It is very hard to get people engaged in climate change causes, mainly because they’re not often observable or emotive.” She explained that: “A greater understanding of the direction the climate is heading in is hugely important and the march can serve as a physical space in which to explore that.” For Ruane, education is central to this cause. “We need to communicate and teach the youth about the damages of climate change,” she said.
Speaking about attitudes to environmental causes in Trinity more generally, she remarked that there is a need for greater motivation within the college community on the issue of climate change. “The problem is we seem to be lacking in incentive for people to commit to the green strategies set out by the green committee (Trinity’s Green Campus Committee)” she said, adding that, “a big move for College this year will hopefully be the divestment from fossil fuels and hopefully our newly elected environmental officer can begin to make some headway on the issue.”
The SU are asking students and their family and friends to meet at Front Square on the day of the march so that the SU delegation can make their way as a group to Custom House Quay where the official march will start.
