Minister O’Brien announces almost €27 million for community climate action

Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment, Daragh O’Brien TD, has today announced funding of almost €27 million being provided from the Climate Action Fund (CAF) for local authorities to support and build low carbon communities across the country.
 
This funding comes as part of the Community Climate Action Programme, which supports projects and initiatives that facilitate community climate action through education, capacity building and learning by doing. Phase 1 of Strand 1 of the programme saw €24 million supporting 650 community climate action projects across the country.
 
Today, Minister O’Brien launches phase 2 of the programme, which sees the funding being provided from the CAF to all local authorities to partner with community groups to run projects that will contribute to national climate and energy targets. the programme supports direct engagement with communities to promote and assist in the scale up of community climate action.
 
Community projects eligible for this guidance and potential funding will address the following five themes:

• community energy;
• travel;
• food and waste;
• shopping and recycling; and
• local climate and environmental action.

 
Speaking about the launch, Minister O’Brien said:
 
“Taking climate action is a global concern, but our local communities are at the heart of life in Ireland. The Community Climate Action Programme has already been successful at helping groups across the country take action within their own towns and neighbourhoods. With the launch of the new phase of CCAP, Local Authorities can continue to support community groups on projects that build low carbon communities.”
 
This strand is administered by the Community Climate Officers (CCAO) in our Local Authorities, who are there as a go-to resource to guide, support, and advise groups and organisations on how they can become lower carbon communities.
 
If a community group would like to learn more about they should contact their local CCAO, details can be found here: https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-climate-energy-and-the-environment/publications/climate-action-fund/#community-climate-action-programme
 
Details on the Strand 1 Phase 2 funding allocated to each of the Local Authorities:
 
The following allocations are proposed based on a minimum allocation of €200,000 to each LA with the balance divided based on population data sourced from the 2016 CSO data
(source: http://census.cso.ie/sapmap/).