Clare Island climate activist addresses UN COP25 summit

SPANISH EXPEDITION Theo Cullen-Mouze, pictured here in Westport, is back home after addresing the latest UN Climate Change Conference, COP25. Pic: Alison Laredo

Prominent climate activist Theo Cullen-Mouze shared the stage with Greta Thunberg and Mary Robinson at the 25th UN Climate Change Conference (COP25) in Madrid, which finished on Sunday. Theo, a Fifth Year student in Sancta Maria College, Louisburgh, made the journey from Ireland to Spain by sea.
In an address to summit attendees, the 17 year old described the effects of climate change on Clare Island, where he lives.
“Winter storms are wilder, summer droughts are longer, extreme flooding is more and more frequent,” he said. “Alarmed by the increasing evidence all around me, I have become a climate activist and a school striker, not because I want to but because I have no option but to be one.”
He also told the conference about how he and his sister, Maude, strike each week in front of local government offices in Castlebar to highlight their concerns. He went on to say: “We are climate activists because we care.”

‘Please listen to us’
Theo castigated world leaders, saying that they have promised much and delivered very little. He said that if he were asked to sum up the catastrophe of the climate crisis, his message would be: ‘Children are dying’.
Theo’s pleaded with the world leaders to sign the declaration on climate, youth and children. He concluded: “Please … listen to us. Listen to the science. Imagine a better world. And start to act like the grown-ups in the room.”
Former Irish President Mary Robinson spoke in her current role as chair of The Elders, an international organisation of public figures noted as elder statespeople, peace activists and human rights advocates. She commended Theo on his speech, which she said was ‘from the heart’, adding that she was very proud of him.
The COP25 conference became the longest climate summit on record when it drew to a close after lunch on Sunday, following more than two weeks of fraught negotiations. It had been scheduled to finish on Friday.
Criticised by many as not going far enough, the summit only managed to secure agreement on the ‘urgent need’ for countries to make deeper cuts to carbon emissions.
Aims to reform carbon trading markets to eliminate loopholes and increase supports for developing countries most explosed to climate disruption were not realised, despite unprecedented global protests by climate activists. Environmental organisations and activists have expressed dismay at the summit’s weak outcome.