Green Party ministers Catherine Martin and Eamon Ryan have announced €3m public funding to “support imaginative creative projects that build awareness around climate change and empower citizens to make meaningful behavioural changes”.
The ministers said that successful applicants are to be “experts from the climate science, community engagement as well as the arts and culture sectors”.
The ‘Creative Climate Action II: Agents of Change’ programme is a joint initiative of the Creative Ireland programme and the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications.
The programme is calling for creative projects which address the following:
• Encourage everyone to rethink their lifestyles
In Association with
• Connect with the biodiversity crisis
• Enable a fair and just transition in making lifestyle changes
• Assist citizens to understand the climate crisis
• Adapt to the effects of climate change
There are two strands of funding under the scheme.
The Spark strand will fund projects at a local level and will award grants of up to €50,000 to “inspire, build knowledge, skills and confidence”.
The Ignite strand will provide grant funding from €50,000 to €250,000 to deliver public engagement projects to groups “with experience in delivering public engagement projects at scale”.
Culture minister Catherine Martin stated: “The first Creative Climate Action projects have done much to capture the public imagination, mobilise communities and show how to make the changes needed. Climate change is humanity’s most important challenge and we need creative projects such as these to galvanise positive action."
Eamon Ryan, Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications, added: “Significant cultural and systemic change across all of society is needed to address the climate crisis. This change can only be achieved through fully exploring avenues for innovative and creative ways to inspire people to take action.”
Officials said the key objective of Creative Climate Action is to provide support for creative and cultural based projects that engage the public about the behaviour changes society will have to make to address climate change.
The first Creative Climate Action Fund was launched in July 2021 and supported 15 pilot projects from around the country. This included dramatic light installations that demonstrated rising sea levels, urban pollinator paths, immersive agricultural programmes in Dingle and Tipperary, decarbonising projects in Limerick and Waterford and the regeneration of the repair and reuse culture in Westmeath.
Project partners included artists and the wider creative sector, climate scientists, local authorities and community groups.
In November 2021, the Creative Ireland programme announced 15 successful recipients of the inaugural Creative Climate Action Fund.
These included the Callan Energy Store, which in April hosted a series of talks, discussions, workshops and film screenings with the goal of improving the energy efficiency of the town.
In 1907 ‘The Callan Powerhouse’, was a locally-owned electricity generating company that provided electricity to a dozen local businesses, and provided public street lighting, long before such things illuminated other rural towns.
This project aimed to recharge the idea of locally-produced and owned electricity generation, and empower citizens to start making the changes we all need to see.
With Línte na Farraige, artists Timo Aho and Pekka Niittyvirta have created light installations at the Spanish Arch in Galway and Wexford Harbour which represent future sea levels. Further installations can be seen in Dún Laoghaire and Balbriggan next year.
The project was led by scientists Zoë Roseby (from Trinity College), Maeve Upton (Maynooth University), Gerard McCarthy (Maynooth University), and Jamie Mathews (Imperial College London), as well as the Dublin Climate Action Regional Office.
Field Exchange was presented by Brookfield Farm in collaboration with artists Deirdre O’Mahony and John Gerrard. The project was launched on the Summer Solstice, 21 June 2022, and culminated in a conference and Harvest Feast in September 2022.
Applications for the scheme will open in December here.
