UCC law student Alicia to address COP26 next week

CLIMATE activist Alicia O’Sullivan will address the COP26 conference in Glasgow next week on measures which would make climate activism more accessible.

The UCC law student travelled by train, ferry and bus from Cork to Glasgow for the event in recent days – travelling for a total of 12 hours, as well as spending a night in Belfast ahead of getting the ferry.

She said: “I got a train from Cork to Dublin, one from Dublin to Belfast, a ferry from Belfast to Scotland, a bus to Glasgow, and a train to Edinburgh, where I am staying.” 

She will attend a Fridays for Future strike on Friday and a march on Saturday to demand action on climate change.

Her speech next week will be as part of a panel of young people at an event through World YMCA.

The focus of the panel will be on the theme of the power of investing in youth-led solutions.

She said: “I think this year’s COP26 is one of the most exclusive COP conferences because people have to be vaccinated, I had to have the PCR test before travelling, and this hampers young people, as well as the expense of getting there. I am very lucky to be here this week with UCC.”

She is among a group representing UCC this week at the conference.

Also attending from the university are Brian Ó Gallachóir, Professor of Energy Engineering and Director of the SFI MaREI Centre; Dr Eoin Lettice, Lecturer in Plant Science; Clara Felberbauer, Research Master's student Atmospheric Chemistry; Dr Kian Mintz-Woo, Lecturer in Moral Philosophy, affiliated with the Environmental Research Institute; Dr Marguerite Nyhan, Senior Lecturer in Future Sustainability at UCC & Visiting Scientist Harvard University; Vera O Riordan, PhD student at the Marine and Renewable Energy Institute and UCC, and Rhoda Jennings, EPA postgraduate scholar, Centre for Law and the Environment, UCC.