Hope and despair were in equal measure at a protest outside the US Embassy today, as Trinity students joined activists and politicians to oppose US President Donald Trump’s decision to pull his country from the Paris climate agreement.
Addressing the crowd today, activists and students all called for a national resistance to the US’s decision to leave the global agreement, which was signed in December 2015 by 195 countries and which saw an unprecedented commitment by countries to take steps to reduce global warming.
The protest joins other demonstrations taking place around the world in response to the decision, which flies in the face of a global movement towards policies addressing climate change.
Fossil Free TCD, which this year successfully pressured Trinity into divesting from fossil fuels, attended the march, with one of the group’s members, Ciara Barry, addressing the crowd. Directing her words to the next Taoiseach, tipped to be Leo Varadkar, Barry said that “tackling climate change is not a duty we have to take on begrudgingly”, but instead an “opportunity” for Ireland.
Speaking to The University Times before the demonstration began, Colm Tong, one of the founders of Fossil Free TCD, said it was vital for students to show their support for action against climate change. It is important, he said, “to come out and show people care and Trinity students care”.
The group drew praise from numerous speakers today, with many emphasising the hope they felt at the crowd and at the response to Trump’s actions. Leader of the Green Party, Eamon Ryan, said that events in the US could be a “rebirth of environmental activism in this country”.
“Let this be the start of the resistance”, he said. “The nonsense that we heard last night must be fought at every opportunity.” Cross-party, cross-generational efforts were needed, he said, if climate change is to effectively combatted.
Indeed, the hastily arranged protest, like many across the world, saw numerous parties represented, including People Before Profit Alliance and Labour.
Speaking to The University Times, Deputy Leader of the Green Party, Catherine Martin, said: “The actions that Donald Trump has taken, it’s the next generation it really impacts and that’s why we have to play our part here.”
Students, she said, can become the role model for everyone the fight against climate change: “It’s powerful and inspirational to see that students are standing up for the next generation.”
Many of the same faces were present at April’s March for Science, in which students and academic staff marched alongside Provost Patrick Prendergast and Chancellor of the University of Dublin, Mary Robinson, to call for evidenced-based policy making and fact-based decisions.
Robinson, who has long been an activist against climate change, has already criticised Trump’s decision for turning the US into a “rogue state” and today’s march is taking place in the wake of global criticism of the the latest, and most extreme example, of Trump’s climate change scepticism.
