More than 160 environmental and public health organisations publicly demanded the removal of the US Environmental Protection Agency administrator after his April speech, while in Dublin the President called for a fundamental rethink of how Ireland treats emissions and security. In early April 2026 Lee Zeldin, administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, told a gathering in Washington that the agency would no longer rely on "bad, flawed assumptions" and declared that "Carbon dioxide, which is required for life on Earth, isn't a pollutant and never was." On May 12, 2026 President Catherine Connolly told the DCU Institute for Climate and Society conference that the normalisation of war and the military-industrial complex are material drivers of greenhouse gas emissions. If you want to follow the detail here at home, consult the DCU Institute for Climate and Society and the Environmental Protection Agency's risk assessments for Ireland.

Ask yourself this: which story will shape the rules you live under, the taxes you pay, and the infrastructure your local council builds? Here's the clear answer. The Washington speech points toward deregulation and a retreat from mainstream scientific framing. The Dublin conference argues for systemic change that includes social justice and education. I'll tell you straight, those two directions aren't the same thing, and they have different consequences for the choices you make at home, at work and in public life.

Washington: a senior US regulator embraces sceptical platforms

In early April 2026 Lee Zeldin, administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, delivered the keynote address at the Heartland Institute's 16th International Conference on Climate Change in Washington. He told the conference audience the agency would no longer rely on what he called "bad, flawed assumptions" and criticised previous administrations for acting on warnings from climate scientists. In a line that drew immediate attention he said, "Carbon dioxide, which is required for life on Earth, isn't a pollutant and never was."

The event was organised and promoted by the Heartland Institute, a think tank with a long record of questioning the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change. The brief notes that Heartland has accepted funding from fossil fuel interests and conservative donors. Heartland told its audience that the April event had "made global news" and linked to coverage from a range of outlets. The conference was co-hosted by other groups that describe themselves as sceptical of mainstream climate science, and speakers celebrated recent US regulatory rollbacks such as the repeal of the greenhouse gas endangerment finding that had underpinned federal regulation of emissions.

There was public pushback. Ahead of the event, more than 160 environmental and public health organisations had publicly called for Zeldin to resign or be removed, arguing his actions had betrayed the EPA's mission. Environmental Defense Fund Action staged posters around the conference venue to criticise his participation. Those reactions aren't ornamental. They mark a clash over the EPA's purpose. If the agency rejects the endangerment finding and treats carbon dioxide as non-polluting, the legal and practical basis for many emissions standards erodes.

Dublin: national leadership asks for a big change

Close to home the tone was very different. On May 12, 2026 President Catherine Connolly spoke at Dublin City University's sixth annual conference of the DCU Institute for Climate and Society.

The conference theme was "Holding the line," a phrase DCU officials said reflected recent backsliding in pledges from governments and businesses and urged recommitment from people in positions of authority.

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President Connolly framed her remarks around the intersection of conflict, security and emissions. "The elephant in the room is the normalisation of war, which couldn't happen without the vast military-industrial complex," she said, warning that warfare and military production make a material contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. She cited a figure from the International Committee of the Red Cross that there are approximately 130 armed conflicts worldwide. The President also argued that technological fixes and incremental change alone won't be enough, and called for a big change grounded in climate justice, alongside a stronger role for education in delivering solutions.

DCU officials were explicit about what the conference was meant to achieve. Dr Diarmuid Torney, director of the DCU Centre for Climate and Society, said the theme "Holding the line" reflected recent backsliding in pledges from governments and businesses and urged recommitment from people in positions of authority. Prof Anne Sinnott, DCU deputy president, described the Institute as Ireland's first academic research centre focused on social science and humanities programmes on the climate crisis and praised its role in public education and debate. The DCU press office also cited presentations and artistic contributions at the event, from ornithology to dance, underscoring the Institute's emphasis on cross-disciplinary approaches.

On the scientific picture for Ireland, risk assessments produced by the Environmental Protection Agency project that the country will become warmer across all seasons and generally wetter overall, with increases in average rainfall. That projection underpinned several speakers' arguments that the scale and speed of transformation required to meet Ireland's declared climate and biodiversity emergency are far greater than current policy delivers. President Connolly noted that since Ireland declared that emergency seven years earlier, successive reports had shown the scale and speed of necessary transformation had not been achieved.

Put plainly, the Dublin conversation tied climate action to social policy, education and geopolitics. It framed emissions as the product of whole systems, including military ones.

That frame pushes policy makers toward deep, cross-sectoral change. The Washington conversation, by contrast, pushes power back to markets and narrower regulatory choices.

For the person trying to decide what to do next, those are meaningful differences. If national regulators move toward deregulation, your local council and utility companies will face different incentives when planning transport, retrofits and energy sourcing. If governments adopt the sort of systemic, justice-oriented approach promoted in Dublin, policy will likely emphasise public investment, education and social measures alongside technology.

Frankly, there is also a civic choice. Public pressure shapes these trajectories. The brief shows that organised campaigns matter. The more than 160 environmental and public health organisations who called for Zeldin's removal, and the actions of groups such as Environmental Defense Fund Action, are part of how policy debates are won or lost. On the other hand, academic institutions like the DCU Institute for Climate and Society are shaping the argument in Ireland by supplying research, convening debate and bringing artistic and scientific perspectives together.

So what should you actually do? Two practical steps follow directly from the events described in the brief. First, if you want the Irish detail presented at the Dublin conference, consult the DCU Institute for Climate and Society. It's the direct source for the conference presentations, research and events that informed the May 12 discussions. Second, for the scientific picture of what to expect here, consult the Environmental Protection Agency's published risk assessments on projected temperature and rainfall changes. Those two sources will give you Irish-focused analysis and the underlying data referenced by speakers at the Dublin conference.

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The two speeches map different futures: one nudges the US toward deregulating emissions, the other pushes for deep, justice-centred change that links security to carbon. For people here that will show up in practical ways, your council's transport and retrofit choices, and the tax and planning incentives that follow, will differ depending on which path gains traction.

This article was created with AI assistance.