The Mary Robinson Climate Conference is an event developed in partnership between The Mary Robinson Centre, Ballina 2023, Mayo County Council and University of Galway.

Speaker biographies*

*​Our speakers are listed in alphabetical order for easy navigation and access.

​THURS 6 JULY - CURRENT STATE OF THE ART AND CLIMATE CHALLENGES

Oisín Coghlan
​CEO of Friends of the Earth Ireland
Oisín Coghlan has been Chief Executive of Friends of the Earth Ireland since 2005.
Oisín co-founded the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition in 2007 and the Environmental Pillar of social partnership in 2009, and led the 14-year campaign for a climate law which culminated in the passing of the Climate Action Act 2021. He leads Friends of the Earth's work to ensure that legal framework is translated into the transformative action required to eliminate Ireland's polluting emissions.
Oisín sits on the Board of the Irish Environmental Network, and the steering committees of Stop Climate Chaos, the Environmental Pillar and Coalition 2030, the Irish civil society coalition championing the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Before joining Friends of the Earth, Oisín worked for 10 years in the areas of overseas aid and human rights. He was the founding coordinator of the Latin America Solidary Centre in 1996, moved to Belize as a community organizer among immigrant banana workers and went on to become the Fresh Fruit Manager for Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International in Bonn. Oisín returned to Ireland in 2002 to become head of policy for Christian Aid, working on trade justice, aid policy and Israel/Palestine.
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Oisín's primary degree was Sociology and Political Science in Trinity College Dublin and he has a Masters in International Relations from Dublin City University.
Mary Robinson
Former President, Chair of The Elders
Manuel Salazar
Technology Strategist & Climate Activist
Manuel is a technology strategist and a rising climate activist who joined Extinction Rebellion, Sea Shepherd and the Climate Docklands group with the conviction of protecting the environment and marine wildlife. Raised in Venezuela, an oil state where 95% of GDP comes from the exploitation of natural resources, he has seen very early in the name of “progress”, the Amazon being depleted, indigenes people being displaced and the direct pollution of lakes and rivers caused by the fossil fuel industry.
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During his time in India, he has witnessed extreme poverty linked to climate change; In Israel, ethnic and land discrimination; and in Germany and the UK, the proliferation of industries that have contributed to the current climate catastrophe.

Now a proud Irish man living in Dublin, he played a key role as a Climate Action Coordinator of the 2019 Extinction Rebellion Week; a long week of civil disobedience demonstrations and direct actions that brought the message of the climate crisis and the need for urgent action to the Irish government doors. As part of the Climate Rising Docklands group and with the support of Trinity College, Creative Ireland and Brokentalkers theatre company, he has highlighted the role of corporations in addressing climate change and how employees can take action from the inside. Most recently, he has formed the Irish Universities Environmental Coalition with the aim to trigger climate action from the inside and he has been invited to the main Irish universities (TUD, UCD, TCD, IADT and DCU) to talk about corporate and climate activism.

FRI 7 JULY - FUTURE TARGETS AND CHALLENGES

Kevin Anderson 
Professor of Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchester
Kevin is professor of Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchester and visiting professor at the Universities of Uppsala (Sweden) and Bergen (Norway). Formerly he held the position of Zennström professor (in Uppsala) and was director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research (UK).

​Kevin engages widely with governments, industry and civil society, and remains research active with publications in Climate policy, Nature and Science. He has a decade’s industrial experience in the petrochemical industry, is a chartered engineer and fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
Cathy Burke
​Consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, Irish Doctors for the Environment and Chairperson of the Green Group
Dr Cathy Burke, a native of Ballycastle, Co Mayo and graduate of UCG, is a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at Cork University Maternity Hospital. She is a consultant representative with Irish Doctors for the Environment and is chairperson of the Green Group at Cork University Maternity Hospital.


Dr Burke has contributed to the upcoming HSE strategy on healthcare decarbonisation and has worked with the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland in drafting their Position Paper on Climate Breakdown. She is part of a working group recently established by the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Ireland which aims to reduce the carbon footprint of maternity hospitals and gynaecology units in Ireland. In her spare time she enjoys cycling, hiking and spending time with her family and friends.
Saoirse Exton
Secretary General’s Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change and on the C40 Cities’ Global Youth and Mayors’ Forum.
Saoirse is an 18 year old climate justice activist from Limerick, Ireland. She began climate striking in 2019 when she founded her local branch of the Fridays for Future global movement. Saoirse believes that restructuring our global economies is necessary to combat colonialist ideas of extractivism and exploitation towards the planet and people. She is a strong advocate of degrowth.

In 2021, she was named one of the 100 inaugural winners of the Rise programme for her work researching and rewriting Irish mythology to bring traditionally suppressed narratives about women and queer characters to the forefront. As a Gaeilgeoir (Irish-language speaker), Saoirse believes that by reconnecting with our traditional languages and storytelling, we can re-establish the concept of Earth as sacred and create policy and practices that facilitate reciprocity with ecosystems.
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Saoirse currently sits on the Secretary General’s Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change and on the C40 Cities’ Global Youth and Mayors’ Forum.
Raymond Flynn
​Environmental Hydrologist and Ecohydrologist
Dr. Raymond Flynn is an Environmental Hydrologist and Ecohydrologist with over 30 years’ experience. He has worked and published extensively, with over 60 scientific publications on these topics to his name.  His research interests focus on how peatlands, and blanket bogs in particular, influence the wider environment. This includes how activities such as agriculture and forestry on blanket bogs affect the ecosystem services (or things nature provides to use for free). His expertise on Irish peatlands has seen him act as the principal ecohydrologist in the development of the Irish Government’s National Peatland Strategy.

Dr. Flynn continues to advise governments (in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland), NGOs, and private companies on strategies for habitat conservation and restoration. His current research, funded through the US-Ireland programme, focuses on how we can use new technologies to better understand how blanket bogs behave and how we can use this information to manage them more sustainably.