Over the next several days, the Cop28 climate summit will be held in Dubai, bringing together world leaders.
A coalition of Irish civil society organisations, Stop Climate Chaos, coordinated the demonstration on Kildare Street on Wednesday.
Calls were made for Ireland to move away from its reliance on fossil fuels without making matters worse for those who currently find it difficult to pay their power bills by people wearing suits and elephant masks.
Jerry Mac Evilly of Friends of the Earth stated, “We have had almost 30 years of Cop conferences which almost completely ignored the elephant in the room – fossil fuels.”
“The evidence is unequivocal: we are running out of time to stop the climate from breaking down. States need to understand that cutting off our urgent addiction to costly, filthy gas, coal, and oil is the only way to address the climate catastrophe.
Trocaire, an Irish organisation, has seen communities “having their entire villages swept away by floods, we're seeing droughts that last for years, and people’s ability to cope is being eroded,” according to Caoimhe de Barra, CEO of the organisation.
“People in the countries most impacted by climate change have done the least to cause this crisis,” the speaker continued, making it incredibly unfair.
“For this reason, we must phase out fossil fuels as soon as possible, but fairly, with the most developed nations that are primarily to blame for this crisis setting the example.”