In advance of COP21 in Paris this November, there will be a series of talks on climate change taking place in Dublin.

This autumn, the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21/CMP11), takes place in Paris, running from 30th November to 11th December.

This will be a crucial conference, aiming to achieve a new global international agreement on the climate, and keeping global warming below 2°C. France, as host nation, will be playing a leading role in ensuring points of view converge and facilitating the search for consensus by the United Nations, as well as within the European Union, which has a major role in climate negotiations.

In advance of COP21, there will be a series of lunchtime talks on different aspects of climate change held in the Dublin Unitarian Church in St Stephen’s Green.

Thursday, 15th October

Eamon Ryan, leader of the Green Party, will give the first talk, asking if we can make Ireland a centre for climate solutions, rather than a source of the problem? Is our political system ready for the great leap towards a low carbon society?

Thursday, 22nd October

Father Sean McDonagh SCC, a Columban priest, is the second speaker in the series. He is considered one of the world’s leading environmental theologians, and will speak on Laudato Si, Pope Francis’s encyclical on the protection of God’s creation and poverty eradication, one the most important papal documents of the past century.

Thursday, 29th October

Professor John Sweeney is the guest speaker for the third talk in the series. As Ireland’s leading climatologist, he will be talking about the scientific basis on which the case for drastic emission cuts is founded, and on the likely impact of climate change globally and on Ireland.

Thursday, 5th November

Trocaire’s Head of Policy, Lorna Gold, will deliver the fourth talk in the series, looking at the human dimensions of climate change and particularly climate justice as a human rights issue in the developing world, illustrated with examples from Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Honduras and the Philippines.

Thursday, 12th November

The final talk in the series will be given by award-winning environmental journalist Frank McDonald. He will be discussing whether world leaders can do better than at the chaotic 2009 Copenhagen summit and on whether any deal will be enough to ward off the worst impacts of climate change.

Each talk takes place from 1-2pm at the Unitarian Church, St Stephen’s Green (beside RCSI), and all are welcome.