The irony! In London, a climate event on extreme heat was cancelled due to extreme heat. In the United States, the country that has historically contributed most to climate chaos, the national parade celebrating 250 years of independence was cancelled because of the dangerous heatwave. In Europe, while Ireland prepared for its EU presidency which has priorities including “protecting our citizens”, possibly thousands of European citizens died in record-breaking temperatures. As climate-induced societal breakdown accelerates, the lack of transformative climate action becomes increasingly absurd.
On the day Ireland began its EU presidency promising to take action to foster “prosperity and wellbeing”, yet failing to list climate action among its top priorities, the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council warned that climate inaction will cost Ireland €13 billion annually. This confirms a simple fact: funding climate action today is cheaper than facing future costs of climate inaction.
One critical public investment we can make today to reduce devastating future societal costs is to dramatically increase public funding for universities so they can lead on transformative climate action.
Among those who consistently advocate for more public investment in higher education is Prof Linda Doyle, provost of Trinity College Dublin. Marking the EU presidency, she publicly highlighted the contribution of universities in promoting democracy, inclusion, the rule of law and competitiveness, while calling for an increase in the EU research budget. Doyle, the first woman to be elected provost, also wants Trinity to be a “good university”. But what does a good university look like amid the worsening climate crisis?
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Building on Doyle’s climate-first university campaign slogan, it is time to reimagine the public good that universities could achieve if they were supported to implement and advance climate justice principles throughout society. A new vision of climate justice universities is emerging in which universities would shape hopeful futures for all, facilitate transformative climate action and support the urgent structural changes needed for more just, healthy, thriving societies.
A climate justice university would focus on its public-good mission. It would ensure that all students, regardless of their discipline, understand the climate crisis, its causes, implications and the broad range of potential societal responses. These places of learning would prioritise community wellbeing instead of private-sector profits. They would focus on community collaborations and civic engagement rather than industry partnerships and corporate engagement. They would protect academic freedom from undue corporate influence, especially from fossil fuel-linked, climate-destroying industries such as big tech and defence.
Recognising that technological innovation alone is insufficient, climate justice universities would prioritise social innovation and capacity-building for societal transformation. They would support creative exploration of regenerative systems and co-operative structures for provisioning food, energy, housing and healthcare. They would also invest in research, focusing on how to phase out harmful technologies and processes. This includes ending fossil fuel reliance, phasing out toxic microplastics, and resisting militarisation.
Well-funded climate justice universities could also act as anchor institutions to provide direct support to local communities on climate mitigation and climate-adaptation strategies. Acting more like public libraries, geographically distributed university networks could help communities facing disruptions in food, energy, water and housing as heatwaves, floods, fires and droughts become more frequent and intense.
But before leading societal transformation, universities themselves need to be transformed. Applying climate justice principles means eliminating student fees and debt, ensuring fair pay for early-career researchers and ending precarious and exploitative working conditions. It also means committing to participatory, inclusive internal governance structures. Ending the academic rat race and embracing the concept of doughnut academia proposed by Anne Urai and Clare Kelly would also be critical. Echoing economist Kate Raworth’s doughnut economics, academia can promote the balance between planetary boundaries and societal needs.
As the EU budget is negotiated over the coming months, it is not just the size of the research budget that matters, but also what the funding will be for. We can no longer afford to subsidise research for environmentally destructive, socially exploitative or military-linked industries in the name of increasing European competitiveness.
Ireland can demonstrate its leadership by having Taighde Éireann/Research Ireland, the national research funding agency, reprioritise research for public good – as called for by more than 2,600 signatories of a recent open letter to Minister for Further and Higher Education James Lawless, and by doubling Research Ireland’s budget.
During its EU presidency, perhaps the best gift Ireland can give the world in these difficult times is to use its values of neutrality to promote peace and resist militarisation and to use its sense of justice, fairness and wisdom to support public education and a research system to advance transformative climate action.
Jennie C Stephens is Professor of Climate Justice at Maynooth University, author of Climate Justice and the University: Shaping a Hopeful Future for All, and co-convenor of Justice Universities Union
