Limerick student selected to join UN special advisory group on climate change

LIMERICK teenager and climate activist, Saoirse Exton has been chosen alongside other people around the world for a special advisory group on climate change.

Seventeen-year-old Saoirse, will be collaborating with six other young people, representing different regions. Saoirse will be representing Western Europe and will be advising the United Nations Secretary General on climate change.

Saoirse has been selected to join the advisory group in the same year she will be completing her Leaving Certificate at Gaelcholaiste Luimnigh.

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“We will be in our own capacities as activists and collectively as a youth advisory group,” Saoirse said on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.

Saoirse said she wants to see better commitments to economic restructuring of systems when asked what priorities she would like to get across.

“In order to combat the climate crisis, we really need to have a strong realisation that things like growth and increasing GDP is actually harmful,” she said.

She said increasing GDP “uses up natural resources” and wants to see a stance towards de-growth.