Empowering People to Address the Problems of Climate Change
Monday, 24 January, 2022
Dr. Karen Foley and Dr. Philip Crowe of the UCD School of APEP, photo by Ste Murray.
With climate change causing radical changes to coastlines through erosion and flooding and leading to major disruption to the coastal communities living near them, concern about the impact of climate change is no longer confined to the world of environmental scientists and “eco warriors”.
But how do communities that will be affected develop a comprehensive understanding of the many, often complex, problems this is causing? How can they make sense of the competing agendas of the various affected stakeholders? And, perhaps most crucially of all in the face of such immense challenges, how can they be helped to overcome their fears and feelings of powerlessness when it comes to addressing them? A collaborative team including researchers and local authorities in Ireland and Wales set out to find the answers to these questions.
“A project like this was long overdue because there’s no consensus on how to engage people with change. That’s not just because it’s difficult, it’s also because the very nature of change has altered. It’s happening at an increasingly rapid rate and the questions have become enormous .”
You can read the full case study here: Empowering People to Address the Problems of Climate Change.
If you would like to know more Coastal Communities Adapting Together (CCAT) will hold its project closure event on 2nd Feb. 2022 to showcase the tools developed during the past two years.
To register for the event, click here.
The programme and details of guest speakers will be available shortly on the CCAT website here.