A delegation from Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) attended the COP21 climate march in Dublin today, alongside thousands of other campaigners, ahead of the climate conference starting in Paris tomorrow.
The delegation from Trinity, comprising roughly fifty students, also used the march as an opportunity to again publicly call on Trinity to end its investments in fossil fuels.
Speaking to The University Times, TCDSU President, Lynn Ruane, who led the delegation, said: “It’s really good to see so many people here today. Obviously, we’ve just began a campaign to get Trinity to divest from fossil fuels, and it really shows there is a lot of support behind it here in the student body”.
Echoing the comments of Ruane, TCDSU Citizenship Officer Kieran McNulty added: “It’s fantastic to see people engage in things like this. We’ve done marches and stuff in the past, and turnouts have been lacklustre, so this is really positive and hopefully the campaign will go from strength to strength”.
Similar marches took place in cities across Ireland and across the world ahead of the conference on climate change in Paris tomorrow. The conference, which will be attended by nearly 150 heads of state and government, will attempt to address the growing problem of climate change and how states can reduce carbon emissions.
The march was organised by Stop Climate Chaos, a coalition of 28 NGOs and other groups including Friends of the Earth and Oxfam.
Attendance at the march is the latest step of the TCDSU campaign to pressure College to divest from fossil fuels. As The University Times revealed in October, Trinity currently has €6.1 million indirectly invested in oil-related stocks, through its investment in funds managed by Irish Life Investment Managers, an asset-management group. This figure equates to 3.5 per cent of the total value of Trinity’s €170 million endowment fund.
Following the successful passing of a motion calling on TCDSU to support the “TCDFossilFree” campaign initiated by Environmental Society in October, the union has been campaigning on College to divest in fossil fuels.
Aine O’Gorman, chair of Trinity Environmental Society, speaking to The University Times, expressed her delight that the march had attracted so many students. Commenting the wide range of societies who attended the march with TCDSU, including the Global Development Society and DU Snowsports, she said: “This is everybody. This is not just an environmental issue. This is an issue that everyone needs to be involved in, and I think that the amount of people who turned up today and marched, and showed their support, is really indicative of how powerfully people feel about divestment, and how powerful it could become”.
Speaking to The University Times, Colm Tong, a member of Environmental Society who has helped lead the “TCDFossilFree” campaign, said: “It’s important for us to come out in solidarity with all the thousands of marches around the world, putting our foot down and saying enough is enough”.
