PRESIDENT CATHERINE CONNOLLY has criticised the degradation of Irish rivers in her first major speech on climate change and the environment.

Connolly told a climate conference in Dublin City University that whereas 500 Irish rivers were classified as pristine in the 1980s, by 2019 just 20 met that standard. 

Transformative change is needed to address climate change, and incremental action is not enough, the president said.

Ninety percent of Irish habitats – woodlands, grasslands and coastal areas – are in “unfavourable” conservation status, she added.

Unfavourable conservation status, as defined under the EU Habitats Directive, means that a habitat is not in a condition that ensures its long-term survival.

Connolly did not point a finger at specific causes of river pollution or of habitat degradation. The Environmental Protection Agency has repeatedly highlighted the damaging impact of fertiliser run-off from agriculture and of discharges of poorly treated sewage from urban wastewater treatment plants on Irish rivers.

Connolly was speaking at the DCU Institute for Climate and Society's annual climate conference. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Military industrial complex

Connolly returned to a theme she emphasised during her campaign for the presidency and in her inauguration address, linking the climate crisis with war.

“The elephant in the room is the normalisation of war, which could not happen without the vast military industrial complex and the obscene profits they are making on the death and suffering of millions,” Connolly said.

“When we discuss climate change…we rarely ever speak about the emissions caused by warfare,” Connolly said.

War and the normalisation of war are “inextricably linked” with climate change and the “deafening silence around this issue speaks volumes and needs to be called out”, she said.

Change needed

It is seven years since Ireland declared a climate emergency, but the transformative change needed to halt climate change is not happening at the scale and speed needed, Connolly said.

Connolly hosted Greta Thunberg at the Áras last year. RollingNews.ie RollingNews.ie

“Report after report” has pointed to the scale of the problem, she added. Europe is the fastest warming continent and the impacts are already severe. The crucial Atlantic current known as the Amoc is significantly more likely to collapse than previously thought, bringing profound weather changes to Ireland and Europe by the middle of the century.

“Caithfear misneach a bheith againn dul i ngleic leis an úafas atá ag tarlú,” Connolly said. (“We must have courage to confront the horror that is happening.”)

Connolly cited one of her predecessors, former president Mary Robinson, who has said that “incremental thinking will not suffice” to address the “overlapping challenges” of rising inequality, climate and biodiversity breakdown. Connolly said she would like to add that “incremental actions will not suffice”.

Connolly promised to make climate action and the protection of Ireland’s natural heritage a central theme of her presidency when running for office last year. She said at the time that she wanted to “celebrate the deep connection between the Irish people and the natural world”.

She has hosted climate activist Greta Thunberg at Áras an Uachtaráin, and has spoken since her election about what she says is an inextricable connection between climate change and the “normalisation of war”.