Presentation to policy makers on climate action

• Title: MaREI Statement to the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action on Carbon Budgets
• Date: 11 January 2022
• External partner: Climate Change Advisory Council’s Carbon Budgets Committee
• External audience: Policy makers

The Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action met on 11 January 2022 and MaREI Director Brian Ó Gallachóir gave an opening statement on Carbon Budgets on behalf of the Climate Change Advisory Council’s Carbon Budgets Committee.

Read the opening statement, background paper and see the recording of the session.

Presentation to policy makers on food security

• Title: UCC address Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture Food and the Marine 
• Date:  09 Mar 2022
• External audience: Policy makers; Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC); Teagasc

On Wed, 9 March 2024, 3 researchers from UCC (led by Dr Barbara Doyle-Prestwich of the ERI/BEES), and one former EPA Biosafety Expert addressed the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture Food and the Marine, as well as officials from Dept of Environment, Climate and Communications and representatives from Teagasc.

The main focus was on the use of innovative technology (in this particular instance the focus was on CRISPR gene editing). This topic is due out for additional consultation across Europe.

Watch the opening statements.

White paper on knowledge co-production for a sustainable society

• Title: Better together: Knowledge co-production for a sustainable society
• Date: Jan 2022
• External partner: Royal Irish Academy (RIA), DCU, Office of Government Procurement, Future Earth Ireland
• External audience: Academics, Eduators, Policy makers, Industry, NGOs

With lead author Dr Paul Bolger of the ERI, the RIA white paper, ‘Better together: Knowledge co-production for a sustainable society’, provides an overview of knowledge co-production for sustainability and environmental research in Ireland; highlights the benefits and challenges of co-production approaches, and identifies key levers for building capacity and capability for knowledge co-production. The paper draws on almost 50 case studies of co-production research for sustainability, along with the outputs from the online Royal Irish Academy symposium and workshop ‘Better together: Knowledge co-production for a sustainable society’, which took place on 3 June 2021.

Influencing Irish national policy on air quality control

Air pollution is directly linked to over 1,500 premature deaths every year in Ireland and new strategies are urgently needed to control emissions.

Under the direction of Principal Investigator Professor John Wenger in CRAC, the EPA-funded SAPPHIRE project showed that the burning of solid fuels (coal, peat and wood) for home heating is by far the largest source of air pollution in winter months. Pollution levels in small towns across Ireland were higher than in the major cities and up to ten times higher at night, thus posing a significant health risk.

Importantly, these results have been used to help shape new policies in air quality control such as the extension of the smoky coal ban to cover all parts of the country by September 2018. This measure introduced by Minister for Communications, Climate Action and the Environment, Denis Naughton, is a major step forward for Ireland in its efforts to achieve the more stringent pollution levels set down by the World Health Organisation.

Re-wind project (reusing wind turbine blades)

• Title: Re-Wind
• Date: January 2022
• External partner: Munster Technological University (MTU), Cork County Council, Rewind network
• External audience: Public use

Re-Wind project (ERI, MaREI) successfully installed a pedestrian bridge in Cork made from decommissioned wind turbine blades.

On a former train track bed connecting the towns of Midleton and Youghal in County Cork, workers recently excavated the rusted remains of an old railway bridge and installed a pedestrian one in its place. The bridge would have been an unremarkable milestone in the development of a new pedestrian greenway through the Irish countryside, if not for what it’s made of: recycled wind turbine blades.

Watch the construction video and find out more about the Re-wind project.

Greening our city webinar series

• Title: Greening Our City Webinar Series 
• External partners: Cork Chamber of Commerce, Cork Healthy Cities (Health Services Executive (HSE) and Cork City Council), Green Spaces for Health, Cork Nature Network and SHEP Earth Aware (All NGOs)
• External audience: Public, EPA, Cork City Council, Cork County Council, local business community

Ongoing series of webinars on the topic of 'greening' Cork in light of Cork City Development Plan.

Looking at what this means from many different perspectives, we host expert practitioners in this field from both Ireland and abroad to share their thoughts, ideas and experiences with us and provide ample opportunity for public to engage and discuss their responses in the sessions.

Go to the full seminar series.

Kinship public artwork project

• Title: Kinship project
• External partner: Lennon and Taylor Artist Collective, Cork City Council, Cork Healthy Cities (HSE and Cork City Council), Green Spaces for Health, Cork Nature Network, Creative Ireland, Cork’s UNESCO Learning City, MTU
• External audience: Public, artists

The KinShip Project is a durational public artwork at Tramore Valley Park. It will provide a programme of artistic residencies, the design and building of a sustainable Eco Lab and series of creative exchanges and knowledge exchanges. All these elements will put the local community at the centre of the project. As partners, the ERI are ensuring that sustainability and climate action are part of the programme of events.

The image used for illustrating this piece of content was sourced on the Cork City KinShip website, and is used under the general consent that Cork City council gives for the re-use of content for bona fide information dissemination purposes. UCC fully acknowledges Cork City's intellectual rights and copyright to this content.