Awards are by definition selective, and therefore often controversial. So it is no surprise that the proposal from Dublin’s Green Party Lord Mayor, Caroline Conroy, to honour climate activist Greta Thunberg, alongside Irish environmental advocate Duncan Stewart, with the freedom of the city has attracted some negative comments.
The award itself, due to be voted on by councillors this week, is purely symbolic, its material rights and duties lost in history. Thunberg will hardly wish to graze any sheep she may own in St Stephen’s Green, or worry that she will be called upon to carry a sword for a city militia.
But symbols are important. Conroy rightly points out that no environmentalists have been so honoured in the past. The climate and biodiversity emergencies are, as the vast spread of air pollution from extreme Canadian wildfires showed so dramatically last week, the defining crises of our era. So it is indeed fitting that pioneer climate campaigners like Thunberg and Stewart should be recognised by the capital.
Critics have argued that most previous recipients of the honour, from Isaac Butt to Maureen Potter and Larry Mullen, had deep local connections. So does Duncan Stewart. There is no obvious evidence that Dublin has any significant place on Thunberg’s personal map. But she does have a special place in the hearts of many of the city’s schoolchildren for her exceptional role in bravely telling truth to power. She has propelled the grim facts that “our house is on fire”, and that her generation will bear the consequences, up the agenda of myopic world leaders.
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Symbolic gestures are no substitute for the radical actions needed if Dublin is to play its part in mitigating the climate crisis. The city council (particularly its parks department) deserves credit for imaginative initiatives, such as the projects greening some inner city areas. But as long as the city’s arteries are clogged with carbon-emitting private (and public) transport, there is a danger that this year’s awards will be remembered chiefly as green window-dressing.