climate change essay in irish

‘A stain from the sky is descending’: how Irish poetry raises awareness of climate crisis

Irish poets wrote about climate change and nature long before it was popular or profitable.

The epic lament for Cill Chais is less about trees being cut down, and more of a lament for the destruction of the ecosphere. Photograph: Eric Luke

I can imagine a reader of The Irish Times, sipping their coffee, looking at the title of this book, Contemporary Irish Poetry and the Climate Crisis, and remarking: “just what we need as the polar icecaps melt, storms increase, water levels rise and the planet is generally in a crisis state – a book on poetry about the climate crisis!”

Indeed, this may then give rise to another chapter in the ongoing debate about the value of humanities and arts in an increasingly commodified and neoliberal age. So I suppose the first thing I need to do, as one of the editors of this book, is to justify its existence. This is an easier task than one might think as, to paraphrase Myles na gCopaleen, Irish poets were writing about climate change and nature long before it was popular or profitable to do so.

Unusually, this book looks at poetry in both Irish and English, tracing connections from the Irish-language nature poets through the epic lament for Cill Chais, and the lines we all learned at school: “cad a dhéanfaifimd feasta gan adhmaid / tá deireadh na gcoillte ar lár”, where the deforestation of the place is seen, in Thomas Kinsella’s translation, as an apocalyptic climate event: “a stain from the sky is descending”.

The poem is less about trees being cut down, and more of a lament for the destruction of their ecosphere, and of their way of living in the place. It is a Cassandra-like calling out of climate crisis avant la lettre, as this poem was written in the late 17th or early 18th century, thereby anticipating ecotheory and its notions of the Anthropocene by some 200 years.

The Idea of the Union: a troubling unionist manifesto

Máire Comerford: the last Irish revolutionary to tell her story

The best crime fiction of 2021

The term Anthropocene was coined two decades ago by the atmospheric scientists PJ Crutzen and EF Stoermer to denote the current epoch where human activity has assumed the force of a geologic event in its transformation of the biosphere. In Ecocriticism on the Edge: The Anthropocene as a Threshold Concept, Timothy Clark points out how the climate crisis has elicited a new form of ecocriticism, one that no longer relies upon “inherited conceptions of the human, the social, culture,” but that subjects them to radical revision. Such an ecocriticism focuses on the ways in which texts operate on multiple scales, grant agency and worth to the nonhuman, and reveal the permeability of “human bodies and psyches … to material environment effects”.

Under such conditions, the poetic text’s resistance to closure becomes a valuable asset. Paul de Man’s view that rhetoric (figurative language) “radically suspends logic and opens up vertiginous possibilities of referential aberration”, indicates how the most significant linguistic feature of poetry disrupts prevailing modes of understanding reality, and expands the horizons of interpretation. This figural “unpredictability” and “uncontrollability”, so characteristic of the poetic text, parallel the turbulent ways in which “living systems” respond to the Anthropocene.

It is not surprising, then, that Susanna Lidström and Greg Garrard accord poetry a privileged status in the Anthropocene literary canon. The prevalent narrative genres, even in the new millennium, remain tethered in varying degrees to mimesis. Bound more tightly to their immediate contexts, these narrative works are less adaptable to the scalar scope of the climate crisis. Poems, on the other hand, are “animated by and able to contain open-ended, multiple and even contradictory levels of meaning”.

Claims for this salutary effect of ecocriticism are pervasive, with John Felstiner noting that poetry instills in individuals “the will to lighten our footprint in a world where all of nature matters vitally”, while Timothy Morton argues that “a poem forces us to acknowledge that we coexist with uncanny beings in a groundless yet vivid reality”.

Over the last two decades, ecocritical studies of Irish literature have proliferated, expanding our notion of the Irish literary terrain, and transforming our perception of its familiar landmarks. The accelerating pace of climate change, and its attendant effects, has invested this ecocritical project with even greater urgency. Writings from an ecocritical and ecotheoretical perspective have gradually gained a foothold in the literature, and a number of significant collections have demarcated the critical pathways of this perspective on the imbrication of poetry and notions of the environment.

In 2011, James McElroy offered an overview of the field to that point, and in this, he sketched out the development of what might be termed Irish ecopoetics. Interestingly, he begins the survey by going to the work of the early Irish language scholar Kuno Meyer, who says that an intense love of nature “in its tiniest phenomena and its grandest” was central to the outlook of the ancient Celt. Considering Ireland’s historic attachment to nature, woodlands and the earth as metaphors and symbols, it is hardly surprising that Irish writing would be fertile ground for ecopoetic readings. The Irish language poetry that has been passed down is suffused with nature and images of nature.

Derek Gladwin points to three seminal works in the “growing trend in Irish studies called ecocriticism”: Tim Wenzell’s Emerald Green: An Ecocritical Study of Irish Literature (2009); Christine Cusick’s edited collection, Out of the Earth: Ecocritical Readings of Irish Texts (2010); and Eamonn Wall’s Writing the Irish West: Ecologies and Traditions (2011), also noting that Gerry Smyth was possibly the first to introduce the ecocritical perspective in his essay “Shite and Sheep: An Ecocritical Perspective on Two Recent Irish Novels (2000).

The essays gathered in this volume reflect the principles attributed above to the kind of ecopoetics most suited to the intellectual and aesthetic demands posed by the Anthropocene. They acknowledge the scalar challenges evoked by the climate crisis by exploring the intersections of local and global, distant past and imminent future, in the texts that they examine. In doing so, they reveal how environmental issues are inextricably interwoven with historical, cultural, and linguistic concerns: how, for instance, the extinction of the Irish language reverberates in the extinction of local flora and fauna; or how the past experience of colonial dispossession foreshadows the climatological dispossessions to come. And perhaps most importantly, each in its own way addresses the profound reciprocity between the human and nonhuman, whether in the form of traditional music echoing natural soundscapes, the intimate kinship between animals and humans, the interweaving of poetic form and vegetal life, or the agency that bogs and other landscapes exert upon human consciousness.

The poets highlighted in the chapters below range from familiar presences in the contemporary Irish literary canon – Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, Paula Meehan, Sinead Morrissy, Moya Cannon – to lesser-known figures like the experimental poet Maurice Scully, Irish language poets Pádhraic Ó Finneadha, Jackie Mac Donncha, Máire Dinny Wren, Proinsias Mac a’Bhaird, Bríd Ní Mhóráin and Simon Ó Faoláin, and newer voices such as Ciaran Berry, Stephen Sexton and Séan Hewitt.

That these essays address the issue of global climate change primarily in an Irish context may appear contradictory. As Timothy Clark notes, literary studies moored in national frameworks seem increasingly inadequate in the face of a planetary catastrophe; however, a globalised perspective can only be launched from a local foothold. In that regard, Ireland’s physical and cultural environment makes it a particularly fertile site for an ecopoetics attuned to the climate crisis.

The intertwining of sea and land so central to Irish life and literature becomes even more pressing in the era of rising ocean levels. The island’s most distinctive landform, the increasingly endangered peat bog, is also an exceptionally efficient carbon “sink”. Its poetic tradition is grounded in pre-Christian Celtic perspective that celebrates the natural world in all its manifestations. Ireland’s subsequent history of diaspora and incorporation in a world-wide empire has infused its literature with what the poet John Montague referred to as global regionalism – the dialectic of “a sense of place and a sense of planet” that for Ursula Heise characterises ecological thinking in the Anthropocene.

So to return to our coffee-drinking Irish Times reader’s initial question about whether we need a book on poetry and climate crisis, my response (admittedly partial) would be yes, yes we do, because language is the medium through which we know and intuit our world, and poetry, as possibly the most heightened and polysemic form of language, voices concerns in a unique and felt manner, about climate issues which are central to our human being, and our planetary being, in the 21st century and beyond.

Contemporary Irish Poetry and the Climate Crisis, Routledge Studies in Irish Writing, Volume 2, edited by Andrew J Auge and Eugene O’Brien (Routledge, 2021)

The Irish Times books of the year: Anne Enright’s favourite titles of 2021

Arne weingart wins moth nature writing prize; mccartney wins waterstones prize, dream worlds: islands, isolation and disintegration, mossie quinlan: remembering an irish volunteer in the spanish civil war, imagining ireland’s pasts: pioneering and comprehensive exploration of irish history, poem of the week: fothragadh by ailbhe ní ghearbhuigh, what michael collins did, arthur griffith’s ‘secret deal’ and four other anglo-irish treaty myths, in this section, old romantics by maggie armstrong: an audacious debut collection with a personality all its own, henry shefflin and rhys mcclenaghan celebrated in sporting poetry day ireland poems, women’s prize for fiction: anne enright and claire kilroy shortlisted, that they may face the rising sun: the best irish film in a very long time, you are here by david nicholls: a highly relatable love story of significance, ‘i’m alone pretty much all the time. the older i become, the less hopeful i am this will change’, more than 40 flights to and from irish airports cancelled due to french strikes, this is dublin’s coolest new place – delicious, creative food in a great room, cyclist (20s) and motorcyclist (40s) killed in road collisions in dún laoghaire and cork, ‘i feel safe, loved, wanted’: high court approves adoption of two teens who have stability with ‘de facto’ family, latest stories, unilever sales rise more than expected in first quarter.

Dalata’s Irish revenues decline since January but ‘modest’ growth recorded in UK

Pernod Ricard sales flat as China and US Woes Persist

Your top stories on Thursday: Ex-Irish special forces resume training in Libya despite warnings; visa-free travel from South Africa could be halted

Mosquito-borne diseases spreading in Europe due to climate change, says expert

‘Stark deterioration’ in mental health within LGBTQ+ community, researchers say

Rats causing havoc on offshore islands, which provide an all-you-can-eat buffet for the invaders

A plant’s-eye view of the climate reveals weird new ecosystems

• Terms & Conditions
• Privacy Policy
• Cookie Information
• Cookie Settings
• Community Standards

• EU climate bank
• EIB at a glance
• Tackling global challenges together
• Part of the EU family
• Our results
• EIB Group impact: Boosting GDP and jobs
• Governance and structure
• Shareholders
• Statutory bodies
• Control and evaluation
• Organisation structure
• Corporate responsibility
• Providing finance
• Human rights and the EIB
• Reporting on sustainability
• Our internal commitment
• Managing our environment
• Transparency, accountability and access to information
• Transparency and access to information
• EIB Group Complaints Mechanism overview
• Project procurement complaints
• Investigating fraud and misconduct
• Public consultations
• EIB Institute
• What we offer
• Loans for the public sector
• Framework loans for the public sector
• Loans for the private sector
• Intermediated loans for SMEs, mid-caps and other priorities
• Microfinance
• Venture debt
• Investments in infrastructure and environmental funds
• Investments in SME and mid-cap funds
• Credit enhancement for project finance
• Guarantees in support of SMEs, mid-caps and other objectives
• Advisory services
• Strategic Development
• Market Development
• Project Development
• Mandates and partnerships
• EU Blending facilities
• Donor partnerships
• Shared management funds and financial instruments
• EFSD Guarantee
• All mandates and partnerships
• Global investment map
• Our projects
• All projects
• Projects to be financed
• Financed projects
• Our regions of activity
• European Union
• Enlargement countries
• Western Balkans
• Eastern Neighbourhood
• Southern Neighbourhood
• Sub-Saharan Africa
• Latin America and the Caribbean
• Asia and the Pacific
• EFTA countries
• Climate and environmental sustainability
• Innovation, digital and human capital
• Sustainable energy and natural resources
• Sustainable cities and regions
• Small and medium-sized enterprises
• Social sustainability
• Solidarity with Ukraine
• Project cycle
• Media centre
• All releases
• Press contacts
• Stories and essays
• All Cartoons
• Video library
• Public register
• EIB surveys
• EIB climate survey
• Picture library
• Infographics
• Publications and research
• Publications
• Our research
• Economic analysis
• Surveys and data
• Assessing EIB impact
• Stories - Economics
• Economic conferences and research networks
• EIB open data
• Open learning
• Work with us
• Diversity and Inclusion
• Our recruitment process
• Investor Relations
• Our funding
• Climate Awareness Bonds
• Sustainability Awareness Bonds
• Recent issues
• Outstanding issues
• Investor relations news
• Investor relations publications
• Investor relations newsletters
• Civil society and stakeholder engagement
• Procurement
• Easy-to-read
• The EIB at a glance
• The EIB and development
• The EIB climate action
• The EIB and SMEs
• The EIB and Ukraine
• The EIB COVID-19 response

72% of Irish people think that climate change has an impact on their everyday lives (five points higher than last year)

• 10 November 2021

The first part of the 2021-2022 EIB Climate Survey explores people’s views on climate change in a rapidly changing world. The results from this release focus on citizens’ perceptions of climate change and the actions they expect their country to take to combat it. 

• 75% of Irish people think that climate change and its consequences are the biggest challenge for humanity in the 21st century
• 68% believe that they are more concerned about the climate emergency than their government
• 72% feel that climate change has an impact on their everyday lives (five points higher than last year)
• 59% think the country will fail in drastically reducing its carbon emissions by 2050, as pledged in the Paris Agreement
• 66% are in favour of stricter government measures that impose changes on people’s behaviour (six points lower than last year)
• 69% would welcome a tax on products and services that contribute most to global warming
• 85% say they want to replace short-distance flights by fast, low-polluting trains in collaboration with neighbouring countries

75% of Irish people think that climate change and its consequences are the biggest challenge for humanity in the 21 st century.

However, this apparent consensus hides significant gaps between different groups of the Irish population. Very diverse levels of concern and expectations on the topic of the climate can be seen among younger and older citizens as well as among men and women and across different socioeconomic categories.

These figures differ across different demographic categories, ranging, for instance, from 86% for 15-29 year-old respondents to 68% (a drop of 18 points) for respondents older than 65 who think that climate change and its consequences are the biggest challenge for humanity in the 21 st century.

The vast majority of Irish people (72%) feel that climate change has an impact on their everyday lives (five points higher than last year and below the European average of 77%).

These are some of the results from the first release of the 2021-2022 Climate Survey published on October 27 by the European Investment Bank (EIB). The EIB is the lending arm of the European Union and the world’s largest multilateral lender for climate action projects .

Perception of the climate crisis: The country’s fight against climate change

68% of Irish people believe that they are more concerned about the climate emergency than their government. As a consequence, they are fairly sceptical regarding their country’s capability to undergo an ambitious green transition. Only 41% think that Ireland will succeed in drastically reducing its carbon emissions by 2050, as pledged in the Paris Agreement. The majority (59%) think that Ireland will fail to meet its reduced carbon emission targets. For people younger than 30, 44% believe Ireland will succeed, and for people older than 64, the figure falls to 34%. 66% of people over 64 believe Ireland will actually fail to meet the 2050 deadline. 56% of 15-29-year-old respondents share this scepticism.

As a consequence, the majority (66%) of Irish people are in favour of stricter government measures — similar to the ones implemented to combat the COVID-19 crisis — that would impose changes on people’s behaviour.

Meanwhile, 8% of Irish people believe that global warming is not due to human activities.

The energy debate

When asked about the source of energy their country should rely on to fight global warming, the majority of Irish people favour renewable energies (70%) to address the climate emergency (seven points above the EU average of 63%). Support for renewables in Ireland is seen strongly among people younger than 30 (74% in favour). This figure drops seven points for people over 64 (67%).

Irish people overall are slightly less supportive of nuclear energy than other Europeans (8% vs. 12%).

Finally, Irish people are slightly less likely to think that their country should rely on energy savings than other Europeans (13% vs. 17%), with the older generation more supportive of saving energy than the younger generation. Saving energy is ranked above an increased role for natural gas (8%).

Most popular solutions to fight climate change among Irish people

The majority of Irish people (69%) would support — the same as the EU average — the introduction of a tax on products and services that contribute most to global warming. Even among respondents with lower incomes, 68% would be in favour of such a tax in Ireland. They are also in favour of a 5-year minimum warranty on any electric or electronic product (90%) and replacing short-distance flights with fast, low-emission trains (85%). They also favour softer measures like strengthening education and increasing youth awareness of sustainable consumption (93%).

EIB Vice-President Christian Kettel Thomsen said: “Despite some generational and sociodemographic divides, almost three out of four people in Ireland want stricter measures and tools to fight climate change. The EIB is working closely with Ireland’s public and private sectors to facilitate this change through an increased share of renewables in the energy mix, innovative partnerships to boost energy efficiency in buildings and advice on introducing cleaner modes of transport modes in urban areas.  As the European climate bank, the role of the EIB is to finance projects focusing on clean energy, energy savings, sustainable mobility solutions and innovations that help limit the rise in temperature to 1.5 °C or less.”  

Download the Excel spreadsheet with the raw data for all 30 countries surveyed here . Please click  here  to access the EIB website that presents key findings of the EIB Climate Survey IV.

About the EIB Climate Survey

The European Investment Bank has launched the fourth edition of the EIB Climate Survey, a thorough assessment of how people feel about climate change. Conducted in partnership with market research firm BVA, the fourth edition of the EIB Climate Survey aims to inform the broader debate on attitudes and expectations in terms of climate action. More than 30 000 respondents participated in the survey between 26 August and 22 September 2021, with a representative panel for each of the 30 countries polled.

About the European Investment Bank

The European Investment Bank is active in around 160 countries and is one of the world’s largest multilateral lenders for climate action projects. The EIB Group has recently adopted its Climate Bank Roadmap to deliver on its ambitious agenda to support €1 trillion of climate action and environmental sustainability investments in the decade to 2030 and to deliver more than 50% of EIB finance for climate action and environmental sustainability by 2025. As part of the Roadmap, all new EIB Group operations have also been aligned with the goals and principles of the Paris Agreement since the start of 2021.

BVA is an opinion research and consulting firm recognised as one of the most innovative market research firms in its sector. Specialised in behavioural marketing, BVA combines data science and social science to make data inspiring and bring it to life. BVA is also a member of the Worldwide Independent Network of Market Research (WIN), a global network of some of the world’s leading market research and survey players, with over 40 members.

Richard Willis

• [email protected]
• +352 4379 - 82155

Press Office

• [email protected]

2021-396-EN

More press releases

Finland: eib makes loan to replace helsinki’s fossil-based heating plants with renewable energy.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has signed a €150 million loan agreement with Helen Ltd, a leading Finnish energy company wholly owned by the City of Helsinki, to finance two new renewable-energy projects in the district heating sector. The total investment amounts to €209 million, with the EIB contributing 72% of the total.

The Sustainable Development Goals are more important than ever: EIB Group President Nadia Calviño at the United Nations

Nadia Calviño, President of the European Investment Bank Group has been participating in the 2024 Financing for Development Forum this week, at the United Nations in New York. The Forum which is organised by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), is designed to bring together stakeholders to address the current global challenges and advance policies for financing long-term sustainable development priorities. This is President Calviño’s first visit to the United Nations since she took up her post in January.

Multilateral Development Banks deepen collaboration to deliver as a system

The leaders of 10 multilateral development banks (MDBs) today announced joint steps to work more effectively as a system and increase the impact and scale of their work to tackle urgent development challenges.

Our website uses anonymised cookies to give you the best browser experience and to collect aggregated statistics. This does not include online advertising cookies.

Cookies on our Careers Section

Our website uses anonymised cookies to give you the best browser experience and to collect aggregated statistics. If you agree, this website section will also include third-party cookies used in online advertising.

To celebrate the International Day of Persons with Disabilities on 3 December, the EIB organises a full week of events to promote exchanges on disability inclusion with staff and expert guests. Diversity is the essence of humanity and a core value of the European Union. As the EU bank, we are committed to promote diversity and inclusion in everything we do.

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

• Temperature Check
• The Stardust Inquests
• Inside The Newsroom
• Climate Crisis
• International

Irish people 'overwhelmingly recognise' climate change threat as 90% say we must act on emissions

LAST UPDATE | 10 Dec 2021

NINE IN TEN people believe that Ireland has a responsibility to act on climate change and reduce greenhouse emissions, a new report has found.

The same number of people believe politicians, citizens, the government, and businesses need to be doing “more” or “much more” to address climate change.

In contrast, only 9% of people think Ireland is too small to make a difference and that it should leave other countries to take the lead.

A new report by the Environmental Protection Agency on climate attitudes has found that Irish people “overwhelmingly recognise the threat, feel personally affected and want to see real change” – and that the majority of people do not believe in the idea that Ireland is too small to take action.

Though Ireland’s share of global emissions is around 0.1%, it is in the top 75 emitters globally and was the seventh worst country in the EU for greenhouse gas emissions in 2019.

90% of people think Ireland has a responsibility to act on climate change and should do what it can to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, while 9% think it is too small to make a difference and should let other countries lead the way on emissions reductions.

1% feel the question is inapplicable because they do not believe climate change is happening.

The new EPA report, which was produced alongside the Yale University Programme on Climate Change Communication, surveyed people in Ireland about their beliefs, attitudes, policy preferences and behaviours in the realm of climate change.

A representative sample of 4,030 adults were interviewed over the phone between 24 May and 29 July.

Most people – 85% – are worried about climate change, including 37% who said they are very worried.

47% think climate change is harming people in Ireland right now, while another 22% expect it will harm us in the next 10 years.

Only 2% think it will never harm Ireland or that it will only be harmful in the distant future and 4% said it will be harmful in 50 years.

But attitudes about climate action and its potential to benefit society were positive – 78% think climate action will improve quality of life and 62% think it will improve economic growth and create jobs.

Nearly four-fifths want climate action policy to be a high or very high priority for the government. 

Minister for the Environment Eamon Ryan said that the research “shows that Irish people are well informed and understand and support the need for climate action”.

He said it will “provide valuable insights as we develop policies and initiatives that will support people” as climate action is implemented.

People want the government to act by developing climate friendly policy. They are also willing to change their political and consumption behaviours but to a lesser degree. 

“This demonstrates that people are aware of the systems changes that are required to effect change and they are also aware of their own responsibilities to act. This points to the need for more behavioural insights as to what supports people need to affect change.”

EPA Director General Laura Burke said the findings “clearly demonstrate that the Irish people overwhelmingly recognise the threat, feel personally affected and want to see real change” and that “as a country we are ready for the transition to climate neutrality and resilience”.

People see the benefits to themselves and Ireland in general and many are already advanced on the journey.

Nearly everyone thinks future generations (95%), people in developing countries (94%), and plant and animal species (94%) will be harmed “a great deal” or a “moderate amount”.

66% are concerned about historic Irish sites being harmed by climate change.

Asked about environmental hazards that could harm their local area, people were most concerned about water pollution (81%), air pollution (70%), and severe storms (64%).

More than half of people were also worried about water shortages, flooding, agriculture pests and diseases and invasive species.

Droughts, extreme heat, wildfires and bog bursts or landslides were still concerns, but for fewer people – 46%, 45%, 40% and 27% respectively.

Wavering trust in politicians

People are more than twice as likely to trust scientists about climate change than they are to trust politicians.

Scientists are the most trusted source of climate change information at 94%, followed by the EPA (89%), educators (88%), family and friends (85%), and TV weather reporters (83%).

69% trust the mainstream media and 66% trust journalists.

However, only 44% trust political leaders as a source of information on climate change.

That falls further to 37% for religious leaders, 32% for corporations and businesses and 24% for online influencers, celebrities or media personalities.

The vast majority believe politicians, citizens, the government, and businesses need to be doing “more” or “much more” to address climate change, which each at 90%.

89% said local governments need to do more; 79% said they personally need to; and 79% pointed to the media.

On government policy, support was strong for measures like grants for efficient heating systems, investing in public transport instead of motorways, and grants to make electric vehicles more affordable.

85% support or strongly support the development of renewable energy infrastructure like pylons or substations in their local area to help reach the government’s target of increasing the share of electricity that comes from renewable sources.

9% said they “somewhat oppose” the idea and 6% strongly opposed it.

Looking at agriculture, 30% strongly support reducing the number of cows in Ireland to cut greenhouse gas emissions, with another 34% somewhat supporting the measure.

19% somewhat oppose it and 17% strongly oppose.

‘Leading the world in many ways’

Speaking at a media briefing, Dr Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale Programme on Climate Change Communication, said that “from a scientific standpoint, our question is why, what are the psychological, cultural, political reasons why some people get very engaged with this issue?”

He added: “Others can be apathetic, and some can be downright dismissive and hostile.”

Comparing the report’s findings to similar studies done globally, he said that “Ireland really is leading the world in many ways in terms of public awareness and engagement on climate change”.

“96% of Irish people say that climate change is happening – by contrast, in the United States, it’s 76%. That’s a 20 percentage point difference,” Dr Leiserowitz said.

“82% of the Irish say that most scientists think climate change is happening versus only 59% in the US.

In other words, in contrast to the United States, there is almost no climate denial, whereas it still exists and is a small minority in the US, but a very powerful and vocal minority.

“One thing that we see here in Ireland and all over the world is a pattern where people tend to still see climate change as a distant problem in a distant time, that the real impacts are a generation away and distant in space – that in the end, this is about polar bears or developing countries, but not my country, not my community, not my friends, not my family and not me.

“So in other words, people tend to see themselves at much lower risk than, say future generations or people and species far away. That’s a very similar pattern that we see in the United States and frankly all over the world.”

He said Ireland has an “enormous opportunity to role model for the world how to engage an all-society response” to the climate crisis.

Making a difference

A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation..

For the price of one cup of coffee each week you can make sure we can keep reliable, meaningful news open to everyone regardless of their ability to pay.

To embed this post, copy the code below on your site

600px wide <iframe width="600" height="460" frameborder="0" style="border:0px;" src="https://www.thejournal.ie/https://www.thejournal.ie/climate-action-ireland-role-epa-report-5625079-Dec2021/?embedpost=5625079&width=600&height=460" ></iframe>

400px wide <iframe width="600" height="460" frameborder="0" style="border:0px;" src="https://www.thejournal.ie/https://www.thejournal.ie/climate-action-ireland-role-epa-report-5625079-Dec2021/?embedpost=5625079&width=400&height=460" ></iframe>

300px wide <iframe width="600" height="460" frameborder="0" style="border:0px;" src="https://www.thejournal.ie/https://www.thejournal.ie/climate-action-ireland-role-epa-report-5625079-Dec2021/?embedpost=5625079&width=300&height=460" ></iframe>

• Defamation Damaging the good reputation of someone, slander, or libel.
• Racism or Hate speech An attack on an individual or group based on religion, race, gender, or beliefs.
• Trolling or Off-topic An attempt to derail the discussion.
• Inappropriate language Profanity, obscenity, vulgarity, or slurs.
• Spam Advertising, phishing, scamming, bots, or repetitive posts.

Leave a comment cancel

Access to the comments facility has been disabled for this user

Create an email alert based on the current article

• TECHNOLOGY BUSINESS ENTERPRISE COMMS START-UPS ALL
• SCIENCE INNOVATION MACHINES CLIMATE ALL
• CAREERS ADVICE PEOPLE EMPLOYERS JOBS NEWS ALL
• FUTURE HUMAN
• MORE VIDEO ADVERTISE FOLLOW US CONTACT ABOUT COOKIE & PRIVACY POLICY

Climate action is becoming a subject in Leaving Cert shake-up

by Sarah Harford

29 Mar 2022

Image: © dehweh/Stock.adobe.com

As part of plans to prepare students for ‘the challenges of the 21st century’, young people in Ireland will soon be able to study climate action at school.

Ireland’s Leaving Cert is getting a new subject – climate action and sustainable development.

It was announced today (29 March) as part of a planned reform of senior cycle education, one of the aims of which is to “empower students to meet the challenges of the 21st century”.

The new subject will be ready for fifth-year students in certain secondary schools starting in 2024.

While climate and sustainability are already touched on in a number of existing Leaving Cert subjects, some have described the current system as “inadequate” and called on the Government to teach students about the climate crisis and empower them to take action.

An Oireachtas education committee was told last year by experts and business leaders that issues such as the climate crisis would need to be tackled in Leaving Cert reforms to prepare young people for the challenges of the future.

The plans announced today were informed by a report from the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, which noted that this stage of education should help students as they “enter an adulthood where global challenges such as sustainability and climate change … can have very local and personal impacts”.

As scientists give a “ dire warning ” about the consequences of climate inaction and Ireland sets out its own climate action plans , the climate crisis is getting more attention at third-level education institutions in Ireland.

There are courses such as a BA in climate and environmental sustainability at Dublin City University and an MSc in climate change at Maynooth University. Dublin City University’s new Centre for Climate and Society is also looking at how areas such as politics, media, education and policy can influence climate action.

Revealing the plan for Leaving Cert reform today, Minister for Education Norma Foley, TD, described it as an “ambitious programme” that would help meet students’ interests and prepare them for future careers.

“Our current system has many strengths,” she said. “But we know that it can be improved … to keep pace with the changes in practices internationally and to meet the needs and expectations of our students and of our society in preparing our young people for the world ahead.”

Other planned changes include the introduction of a drama, film and theatre studies subject, revised curricula for all existing subjects, and an emphasis on additional assessments outside of the traditional final written exams.

10 things you need to know direct to your inbox every weekday. Sign up for the  Daily Brief , Silicon Republic’s digest of essential sci-tech news.

Related: education , climate , government & policy , Ireland

Sarah Harford was sub-editor of Silicon Republic

[email protected]

You May Also Like

38 projects score SFI funding to boost STEM diversity

28 Feb 2024

Fresh funds for 78 biodiversity plans across Ireland

Irish tech training programmes bag €28m to boost economy

23 Feb 2024

How can businesses achieve decarbonisation at scale?

18 Jan 2024

Enterprise Ireland discusses record job figures for 2023

13 Jan 2024

Wexford waters become Special Protection Area for seabirds

11 Jan 2024

More from Science

Latest news.

CLIMATE CHANGE

Content collection highlighting the variety of news, analysis and debate on the issue of climate change.

Heat-related deaths in Europe increased by 30% in last 20 years

Heavy rainstorms kill four people in southern China

Mick Clifford: Could the new housing bill make things worse? 

Global leaders begin bid to address plastic pollution

Burundi hard-hit as flooding causes havoc across East Africa

Irish Examiner view: US students have witnessed 404 school shootings since Columbine

S Mick Clifford: Some politicians succumbing to pressure of appeasing voters’ irrational fears

Sun, 21 Apr, 2024

S Elaine Loughlin: Freewheeling Eamon Ryan happy not to play the politics game

Sat, 20 Apr, 2024

Funding to protect Cork roads from climate-change damage cut despite rainfall increase

Letters to the Editor: Ireland needs a dedicated defence minister

Does the rain in Bahrain signal a new norm for the Middle East? 

Fri, 19 Apr, 2024

Poverty is bigger issue for EU voters than migration, survey shows

Wed, 17 Apr, 2024

Storm dumps heaviest rain ever recorded in UAE, flooding roads and Dubai airport

Sarah Harte: Could a new crop of independents harness anger and come together?

World faces ‘deathly silence’ of nature as wildlife disappears, warn experts

Tue, 16 Apr, 2024

Mary Robinson: Spend money on climate now or our future will be more grim

Anja Murray: Marine Protected Areas Bill has been bogged down — but is due any day now

Wed, 10 Apr, 2024

Oil bosses call phasing out fossil fuels a ‘fantasy’ — but an international agreement is plausible

Antarctic meteorites are disappearing at 'alarming rate', new research finds

Tue, 09 Apr, 2024

Swiss women score landmark climate win in European court decision

European court hands down mixed rulings on climate goal cases

Top European court to rule on climate change obligations

Apple grower faces no shortage of challenges as he grows around 6m every year

Mon, 08 Apr, 2024

Scientists confirm record highs for three most important heat-trapping gases 

Sun, 07 Apr, 2024

Bee-eating hornets are just the start of the alien invasions

Thu, 04 Apr, 2024

Global rainforest loss continues at rate of 10 football pitches a minute

The EU’s great green retreat benefits the far right. For the rest of us, it’s a looming disaster

Tue, 02 Apr, 2024

Anthony Foley: Climate change measures will be tougher than many wish to believe

Mon, 01 Apr, 2024

Surge of new US-led oil and gas activity threatens to wreck Paris climate goals 

Thu, 28 Mar, 2024

More than 1bn meals thrown away daily while 730m people live in hunger

Wed, 27 Mar, 2024

Extreme heat summit to urge leaders to act on threat from rising temperatures

Follow irish examiner.

© Examiner Echo Group Limited

What impact will climate change have on Ireland?

Climate projections for the next century indicate changes in wind speeds and storm tracks; increased likelihood of river and coastal flooding; changes in the distribution of plant and animal species and in the phenology (the timing of lifecycle events) of native species; water stress for crops, pressure on water supply and adverse impacts on water quality and negative impacts on human health and wellbeing.

Search my local environment

Climate science is clear - human activities are estimated to have caused approximately 1.0°C of global warming above pre-industrial levels with a likely range of 0.8°C to 1.2°C. At current levels of global greenhouse gas emissions, the world remains on course to exceed the Paris Agreement’s temperature thresholds of either 1.5°C or 2°C above pre-industrial levels.

Climate change not only means changes in the average climate such as temperature but also changes in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather and climate events. Though climate change projections, like all projections of the future, are subject to uncertainty, the latest climate modelling projections for Ireland are in broad agreement with previous research.

Observed and Projected Climate Change

Temperature trend.

Ireland's climate is changing in line with global trends, with a temperature increase of, on average, 0.8°C compared with 1900. By the middle of this century (2041 – 2060) the average annual temperatures are projected to increase by between 1–1.2℃ and 1.3–1.6℃ depending on the emissions trajectory. The number of warm days is expected to increase and heat waves are expected to occur more frequently.

Precipitation

Ireland has seen an increase in average annual national rainfall of approximately 60mm or 5% in the period 1981-2010, compared to the 30- year period 1961-1990. Significant reductions are expected in average levels of annual, spring and summer rainfall. Projections indicate a substantial increase in the frequency of heavy precipitation events in Winter and Autumn (approx. 20%).

Sea Level Rise

The rate of global sea level rise for 2006–2015 of 3.6 mm per year, is unprecedented over the last century, and about 2.5 times the rate for 1901–1990. Sea level is projected to continue to rise at this rate or greater. All major cities in Ireland are in coastal locations subject to tides, any significant rise in sea levels will have major economic, social and environmental impacts. Rising sea levels around Ireland would result in increased coastal erosion, flooding and damage to property and infrastructure.

Other Indicators

• The last five-year (2015–2019) and ten-year (2010–2019) average temperatures are the warmest on record. Since the 1980s, each successive decade has been warmer than any preceding decade since 1850.
• In Ireland, 2019 was the ninth consecutive year with temperatures above normal.
• Ireland has seen a reduction in the number of frost days and shortening of length of the frost season.
• The number of very intense storms is projected to increase over the North Atlantic region. Projections suggest that the winter track of these storms may extend further south and over Ireland more often.
• Sea surface temperature in Irish waters has increased at a rate of approximately 0.6°C per decade since 1994, which is unprecedented in the 150-year observational record.

Future Impacts

The climate projections for the next century indicate that observed climate trends will continue and intensify over the coming decades. Adaptation refers to actions taken to reduce vulnerability and exposure to climate change impacts. The more we reduce global emissions, the less adaptation to the consequences of climate change will be required. However, some impacts are already unavoidable.

Predicted impacts include:

• changes in wind speeds and storm tracks
• increased likelihood of river and coastal flooding
• changes in distribution of plant and animal species and in the phenology (the timing of lifecycle events) of native species
• water stress for crops, pressure on water supply and adverse impacts on water quality
• negative impacts on human health and wellbeing

More Information

For more climate related resources, please visit the ‘ Climate Change & You ’ section of the EPA website.

EPA's Climate Change Research Reports

Climate change work is also done by Ireland’s meteorological service, Met Eireann .

The information and data required for climate adaptation planning in Ireland, including observed climate information and climate change projections can be found on Ireland’s Climate Information Platform, Climate Ireland .