Climate action is more successful if communities are involved in initiatives from the very outset, new research has found.
Published by Pobal and the Department of Climate, the research paper looked at 19 projects given Government funding and examined how they can be scaled up and replicated around the country.
Under then-minister Eamon Ryan, more than €31m had been allocated to phase two of the Community Climate Action Programme across the country.
These included projects run by Bohemians FC in Dublin, and Pobal said each one created tools, resources and approaches to assist their communities to take “meaningful action on climate change”.
“Effective community climate action requires ongoing and inclusive engagement, partnerships with local groups and creating a sense of connection and empowerment,” the report said.
People tend to prefer in-person activities for this kind of engagement. However, resource limitations and short-term funding often make it harder to build momentum, trust and include everyone.
To expand climate-related projects to more communities will require long-term and flexible funding to meet different needs, it said.
Having long-term funding will also mitigate against staff turnover and resource shortages.
The initiatives surveyed for the study included efforts to transform food waste into sustainable food systems in the community, and coastal adaptation training in areas vulnerable to rising sea levels.
Homeworks, a partnership between the National LGBT Foundation and the Common Knowledge Centre for Sustainable Living, saw the development of a toolkit to pool together knowledge on climate solutions at a community level.
It has seen the creation of eight community garden projects, a green energy and solar education programme in the North West, and a biodiversity education and bat preservation walk in Clare.
For Bohemians FC, they partnered with local groups in the Dublin 7 area, including Connecting Cabra and Mountjoy Prison, to support older people to access home retrofits, and engaged asylum seekers and refugees to deliver green skills training in areas such as bike maintenance and renewable energy.
“We have worked closely with the projects supporting them to adapt and develop in response to the real needs of the communities, especially those most marginalised, to ensure the trainings and resources created are relevant and impactful,” Pobal chief executive Anna Shakespeare said.
“The research provides valuable insights into how bottom-up, community climate action can be fostered and sustained and can inform future programmes, enabling progress on both social inclusion and net zero, simultaneously.”