Kildare Public Participations Fourth Annual Climate Action Weekend: Here’s How it went
By Rachel Kavanagh
Climate Ambassador with An Taisce and student journalist
If you missed the climate action events last weekend, here’s a run-down of what happened.
Kildare Public Participation Network host the Climate Action Weekend annually to “try and highlight climate action within the County and spread the word and messages that need to be spread.”
The action-packed weekend kicked off on Zoom with Paula O’Rourke, the Climate Action Co-Ordinator with Kildare County Council, discussing Kildare County Council’s Climate Action Plan 2024-2029.
The plan is aligned with the Governments National Climate Objective to achieve a transition to a climate resilient, biodiversity rich, environmentally sustainable and climate neutral economy by 2030, according to Kildare County Council.
O’Rourke dived into the plan in great detail and explained that Kildare County council aims to decrease emissions across all sectors of the County, with a focus on moving away from fossil fuels.
The ambitious plan, for example, sets to decrease our power emissions by 75%, our transport emissions by 50%, farming emissions by 25% and commercial emissions by 45% by 2030.
She emphasised that “farming gets a bad rap, but the reality is that farmers are a really important factor in our transition a net zero society.”
The interactive zoom session was very informative and detailed, giving participants time to ask O’Rourke questions about the plan at the end.
Friday afternoon saw Austin Nevin from Chadwick’s hold a drop-in clinic in Nass Library. He guided people through the use of a new app called yourretrofit.ie, a free platform providing personalised plans for your retrofit to enable you to transform your BER and save on your energy bills.
The information is condensed into simple to understand, tailor-made, advice regarding the upgrade options suitable for YOUR home and YOUR budget.
On Saturday locals of Naas Town were kept busy in Naas Library with 3 climate change focused workshops. The first workshop focused on sustainable clothing, the next on climate friendly eating and the last one was on how to live a zero-ish waste lifestyle. All three interactive workshops were hosted by KPPN and the Sustainable Life school in Dublin and were occupied by a large group of local people looking to learn how they can do their part in the climate crisis.
Those in participation were given interactive sessions to learn information on the climate crisis and learn tips to add to their everyday lives so that they can be more sustainable, healthy and climate conscious. Participants were shown local, sustainable businesses like Refills in Naas Town and the Too Good to Go app, as well as products like GUPPYFRIEND, a washing machine bag to catch microplastics from your clothes. The workshops gave information on what our clothes are made of, the damage caused by fast fashion, climate friendly foods like eating plant based and the climate damage caused by the meat and dairy industries.
Participants got to brainstorm how we could re-design clothing items and how to re-use items like paper clips or empty jars to reduce waste and prevent more waste going into landfills.
In Maynooth on Saturday, the Earth Baby fair was filled with activities for the whole family and gave parents the chance to learn about eco-friendly nappies and baby care.
Naomi Scott-Hayward, member of the Kildare PPN Secretariat, said, “it’s important to get the awareness and education, background [on the crisis], that’s why today was great to learn why we need to take action and to spread the word because we can have such a big impact.”
Sean Kennedy, a participation of all the events and a member of Naas Community Men’s Shed, lives a zero waste lifestyle to “look after the environment,” and uses the community group to encourage people to do the same. With his “years of experience looking at what was going on around the country,” and everything now being disposable, Kennedy wants to help the community move towards a more sustainable environment.
Personally, I got involved with the climate action weekend as part of my Climate Ambassador Programme 2024 with An Taisce. I can say that the workshops exceeded my expectations in being informative, interactive and exceptionally interesting all round. It has made me even more inspired to do my part in climate action and even more eager to spread the word. I learned so much new information about the climate crisis and how we as communities affect it, but how we are also the solution in helping the crisis as well.
I learned that there is power in knowledge and in numbers. It felt empowering speaking to like-minded people and coming together to brainstorm ideas on how to be more sustainable.
I would urge more people to get involved in the weekend next year, to start educating themselves on the climate crisis and to get involved in their local community groups like the Tidy Towns, Men and Woman’s Shed’s, and local businesses like Refills for those interested in reducing their carbon footprint.
To read Kildare County Council’s Climate Action Plan 2024-2029, visit: https://kildarecoco.ie/YourCouncil/Publications/ClimateAction/
To learn more about climate change and climate action, visit: https://spunout.ie/category/life/climate/
