Public Participation in Local Climate Change Governance - The Case of Environmental Groups in Ireland

In 2014, the Irish Government established Public Participation Networks (PPNs) in each local authority area in the country to enable the public to take an active formal role in local policy making and oversight committees of their local authority. PPNs also provide a means for local authorities to connect with community groups around the country and to benefit from their expertise. Any local group can participate in one or more of three different policy areas: Social Inclusion, Community & Voluntary; and Environment. This paper analyses survey data collected from over 100 groups that participate in the Environment section of their local PPN to investigate their organisational structure, their activities, their beliefs, and the extent to which they engage with the Environmental Pillar – the organisation representing ENGOs at the national level and who provide a channel for Government and other social partners to engage with the environmental sector. Results show that most groups are entirely made up of volunteers, have few members, are majority female, and do not have children as members. Nearly all groups have a strong “pro-ecological” world view (on the New Environmental Paradigm Scale, Dunlap, 2008) and believe that citizens, local government, national government, and industry are not doing too enough to protect the environment. Besides climate change, most groups are focused on issues related to biodiversity loss, water quality, planning & development and raising environmental awareness. The vast majority of the groups have few or no network ties (collaboration, information exchange, forum participation) with the national ENGOs that make up the Environmental Pillar. These findings are indicative of the fact that Ireland is one of the most centralized states in Europe, with local or regional groups having few responsibilities or resources. The consequences of the local groups being detached from national level ENGOs and from national decision-making authorities are that the government is less likely to be aware of their preferences and that these groups are unlikely to have much influence over decision-makers.