The EPA-funded project C-CHANGE is solutions-focused, with an emphasis on providing guidance for facilitating inclusive public participation in environmental and climate dialogues for climate action in Ireland. The C-CHANGE project will inform future climate-related environmental policies, legislation, regulations, and guidelines. Public debate, specifically, the Department of Communications, Climate Action & Environment’s National Dialogue on Climate Action (NDCA), will be directly informed by this project.
The major objective of the proposed research is to improve our understanding of participatory approaches to national environmental and climate action dialogues to specifically support the implementation of the NDCA in Ireland in the future. This will be achieved, firstly, through synthesizing national and international best practice in relation to participatory frameworks for climate action and environmental issues and through analysis of the NDCA discourse to date in Ireland. Secondly, we will quantify the impact of the NDCA activities and approaches on participant’s and stakeholder’s attitudes to climate change in Ireland with a specific focus on awareness-raising, motivation to act on climate change and changes in behaviour. The project will develop new tools, indicators, and guidelines which will facilitate participation in environmental dialogues in Ireland in the future, including the NDCA. Through an interdisciplinary approach, the proposed research will assume a transdisciplinary perspective that draws upon both qualitative and quantitative methods mainly from social studies, communication and cultural studies, anthropology, and governance studies. Strategic agility and value will be maximized through integrating study findings with previous and ongoing EPA-funded projects.
