Responding to climate change and the energy transition: the experience and capacity of communities in Ireland

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dc.check.embargoformatEmbargo not applicable (If you have not submitted an e-thesis or do not want to request an embargo)en
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dc.contributor.advisorMullally, Gerarden
dc.contributor.advisorO'Gallachoir, Brianen
dc.contributor.authorWatson, Clare
dc.contributor.funderEnvironmental Protection Agencyen
dc.date.accessioned2021-05-14T11:37:36Z
dc.date.available2021-05-14T11:37:36Z
dc.date.issued2020
dc.date.submitted2020
dc.description.abstractIreland’s 2015 White Paper on Energy acknowledges that the energy transition will require citizen and community participation in renewable energy generation, distribution and energy efficiency. While the role and capacity of communities is seen as essential, it is poorly understood and inadequately researched in Ireland. This PhD addresses this gap by: examining the potential for community action on climate change and the energy transition; identifying existing social, institutional and infrastructural barriers to such collective action; and pinpointing the supports required to develop effective capacity, in particular, in community energy groups. This interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research draws from the methodological approach of grounded theory, and has been influenced by the principles of second order transformational, participatory, and engaged research. The research has adopted an adaptive and reflexive approach throughout. The research methods were qualitative and included extensive fieldwork within both the policy and the community energy arenas. The thesis includes a literature review of the behavioural and social challenges of responding to climate change; the public response to renewable energy developments; community energy and the context of community energy in Ireland. It identifies four key concepts: energy transition; participation; social capital; and capacity, which underpin this research. The author’s multi-method approach included extensive fieldwork; 9 semi-structured exploratory interviews; two stakeholder engagement events with climate advocates; a day-long facilitated workshop with community energy practitioners and policy makers (2015); and five two-hour workshops with representatives of the six community energy groups in the study (2017/18). The key findings of the thesis are as follows: There is considerable policy and community interest in community energy; significant barriers to community-owned production of RE exist, including planning complexities, difficulties accessing the grid, lack of feed-in tariff, and financial risks; groups have difficulty engaging members of the public and local opposition can be a disabling factor; volunteers can only do so much; capacity supports are urgently required, including the removal of barriers to the community-owned production of RE, access to on-going core funding, assistance from skilled people, and the availability of a ‘one-stop shop’ where groups can go for help. Recommendations arising from the research include the following: Strong, continual and visible national leadership on climate action is critical; a range of approaches to support and encourage community energy should be developed in response to the varying capacities of different communities; mentoring in community development and community engagement is essential; reliable, multi-annual sources of core funding should be made available; and existing barriers to community energy should be addressed.en
dc.description.statusNot peer revieweden
dc.description.versionAccepted Version
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationWatson, C. 2020. Responding to climate change and the energy transition: the experience and capacity of communities in Ireland. PhD Thesis, University College Cork.en
dc.identifier.endpage255en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/11321
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherUniversity College Corken
dc.relation.projectEnvironmental Protection Agency (Project 2014-CCRP-MS-21)en
dc.rights© 2020, Clare Watson.en
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/en
dc.subjectClimate changeen
dc.subjectEnergy transitionen
dc.subjectCapacityen
dc.subjectCommunity energyen
dc.subjectClimate actionen
dc.subjectEmpowermenten
dc.thesis.opt-outfalse
dc.titleResponding to climate change and the energy transition: the experience and capacity of communities in Irelanden
dc.typeDoctoral thesisen
dc.type.qualificationlevelDoctoralen
dc.type.qualificationnamePhDen
ucc.workflow.supervisorg.mullally@ucc.ie
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