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Climate Action Grants Available for Coastal Communities

10th January 2024
Minister for Environment and Climate Eamon Ryan - Projects selected for funding under the programmes will have to contribute to national climate and energy targets
Minister for Environment and Climate Eamon Ryan - Projects selected for funding under the programmes will have to contribute to national climate and energy targets

Coastal communities can apply for climate action grants from a €27 million “funding pot” announced by Minister for Environment and Climate Eamon Ryan.

Speaking in Co Cavan, Ryan said it was one of the largest of its kind, earmarked for local organisations working to build low-carbon communities.

It comprises a national Climate Action Fund allocation of €24 million and an allocation of €3 million, which is being provided by the Government’s Shared Island Fund to support cross-border and all-island community climate action initiatives.

The programme, which local authorities will administer, can provide amounts of up to €100,000 to larger local projects over an 18-month period.

However, there is no one-size-fits-all for local projects so the fund will be flexible enough to provide lesser amounts as needed to smaller and medium-sized local action programmes, Ryan said.

“With climate action, place is everything. What works and what’s needed for a coastal community will be different to what works and what’s needed for a midlands community, for example," he said.

Projects selected for funding under the programmes will have to contribute to national climate and energy targets across the following five themes:

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

All local authorities now have a dedicated community climate action officer (CCAO) who will assist interested groups with their applications and provide guidance on the programme, helping to match local action with suitable funding, Ryan said.

Groups interested in applying should contact their local authority and ask to speak to the CCAO about the programme before applications close in early March.

Published in Coastal Notes
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Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.