On International Climate Action Day, Trinity College Dublin’s E3 initiative, bringing together the Schools of Engineering, Natural Sciences, and Computer Science and Statistics, hosted a timely and urgent virtual event titled, ‘The Urgent Need for Action on Climate Change.’ A distinguished panel of experts dissected the systemic failures, data-driven realities, and social innovations necessary to accelerate Ireland’s response to the climate crisis. The consensus was clear: incremental change is not enough; the solution demands a fundamental shift in values, policy, and collective action.
The Call for System-Level Transformation
The panel, featuring Professor Anna Davies and Dr. Silvia Caldararu from the School of Natural Sciences, Stephen Treacy from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Dr. Graham Dwyer, Co-Director of the Centre for Social Innovation, delved immediately into the core challenge.
Professor Davies, a leading voice in environmental governance, set the stage by stressing that addressing climate change is not about "tweaking one policy or one sector." Instead, it requires a redesign across multiple interconnected domains, from how we power our economies and build our cities to how we grow our food and govern investments.
"Research in the field of sustainability is, by definition really, multifaceted," she noted. "We need to look at things in the round."
When pressed for the most fundamental required change, Prof. Davies pinpointed the need to redefine how value is identified, counted, and rewarded. She cited recent research showing a lack of commitment from major banks to stop funding new fossil fuel capacity, arguing that "innovations alone won't scale unless policy and investment architectures around kind of support them." For her, the priority is aligning the 'rules, tools, skills and understandings' to ensure climate action is treated as a public good.
The Reality of the Data Disconnect
Adding a sobering perspective, Dr. Silvia Caldararu, whose work models the carbon cycle and ecosystem response, indicated that climate data suggests we are tracking towards the worst-case scenarios.
“It looks like we are in some of the worst scenarios that we were expecting,” Dr. Caldararu stated, pointing specifically to data on rising sea temperatures. She clarified the concept of ‘uncertainty’ in climate science, it’s not a lack of knowledge, but a quantifiable range of risk that policymakers should use to inform decisions, especially regarding high-impact 'tipping points' and extreme weather events.
Stephen Treacy, who leads the EPA’s emissions statistics team, provided the context of national accountability. He highlighted a critical disconnect between Ireland’s climate ambition and its action. While the country’s plans are sound, implementation performance is falling short. Ireland’s national target is a 51% reduction in emissions by 2030, but current projections, even in the most ambitious scenario, suggest only a 23% reduction.
“The speed and pace of implementation are really the biggest issues,” Treacy commented. The EPA’s role, he explained, is to provide constant accountability through quarterly emissions inventories and independent scenario analysis, flagging where "unallocated measures" in policy lack the detail needed to translate into measurable action.
Harnessing Social Innovation and Grassroots Power
Dr. Graham Dwyer, an expert in social innovation and crisis management, offered a framework for bridging the implementation gap with human-centred action. He defined social innovation as a way to "bring a diversity of different stakeholders together and to start to deliver on a form of collective action."
Dr. Dwyer advocated for a shift from the "transactional instrument" of a Climate Action Plan to a more transformative approach focused on specific community needs. He highlighted the critical role of social entrepreneurs and grassroots initiatives, such as the example of the Dingle Hub, in leveraging local knowledge to find solutions.
Furthermore, he stressed the importance of distributed leadership in driving change within large systems. "When you distribute that leadership... then it can be actually much more inspirational and effective," he said, suggesting that progress could be made by stepping back, acknowledging what is already known, and fostering cohesion rather than focusing solely on radical disruption.
Professor Davies backed this focus on local action, stressing that at the local authority level, climate action must be integrated into all city governance, plans, budgets, procurement, and job descriptions, rather than being treated as a separate silo. "Fundamentally money talks," she warned, "if climate action is not reflected in budget or procurement, then governance is symbolic really rather than operational."
The event, which was part of E3’s ‘Balanced Solutions for a Better World Online Webinar Series,’ served as a powerful reminder on International Climate Action Day that the science, the data, and the frameworks for change exist. The challenge now lies in governance and commitment—moving from ambition to aggressive, unified action across all sectors of society.