As the urgency of the climate crisis continues to dominate global headlines, the DCU Institute for Climate and Society marked it’s annual conference last week on the St Patrick’s Campus.  The highly successful event, which included an address by Irish President Catherine Connolly, brought together journalists, communications professional, conservationists, artists and independent researchers as well as some of the University’s leading figures in environmental research.  To mark the event, this research spotlight is taking a look at recent research from those associated with the event and the Institute.  From the psychology of public attitudes to the narratives of Irish farming communities, and from the redesign of university curricula to the power of cinema as a vehicle for environmental ethics, our researchers are approaching the climate challenge from every conceivable angle.

How Do Europeans Actually Feel About Climate Change?

Dr Ashling Bourke, an Associate Professor in Psychology and Human Development at the Institute of Education and a moderator of one of the events, has collaborated on striking research on climate sentiment across Europe.  The systematic review, published in Current Research in Ecological and Social Psychology, examined 93 studies drawn from across Europe to map the social and psychological factors that shape climate change attitudes.

The headline finding will reassure those who fear widespread public indifference:  belief in climate change runs very high across Europe, with some large-scale studies estimating it at around 98%.  But the more nuanced picture the team uncovered is arguably more valuable for policymakers.  No single factor explains the diversity of views on climate. Instead, attitudes emerge from a complex interplay between who we are, who we spend time with, and the broader political and cultural environments we inhabit.  Women, younger people, and more educated individuals tend to express greater concern, though even these patterns are not universal.  More strikingly, right-wing political orientation and populist worldviews are among the most consistent predictors of climate scepticism across the continent, a finding with obvious implications for how climate communication is designed and targeted.  The team also highlights a significant gap in the research:  very little is known about how climate attitudes form in childhood or how they shift over time.

Dr Bourke is now leading the NextGen ClimateChange project which seeks to address a critical gap in understanding of how teens, who will live through the effects of the climate crisis, develop their climate attitudes, knowledge, and actions. 

When Farmers Feel Left Behind

Dr Alice Brawley-Chesworth, a Postdoctoral Researcher in Environmental Policy and Politics with the Institute for Climate and Society, moderated another of the day’s panels.  Along with fellow Institute members Dr Danny Marks (School of Law & Government), and Dr Darren Clarke (School of History & Geography), she has published research that strikes at the heart of one of Ireland's most pressing adaptation challenges, and which her panel addressed.  Their paper in Agriculture and Human Values uses narrative analysis to explore why Irish farmers are, despite acknowledging that climate change is real and already affecting their livelihoods, slow to implement adaptation measures.

The answer, the team argues, has less to do with ignorance or denial than with a deeply rooted sense of injustice.  Through interviews with 27 professionals working in and around the agricultural sector, and a subsequent validation workshop, four interrelated narratives emerged. Farmers feel that rural communities are systematically disadvantaged compared to urban areas.  They perceive that adaptation policies are designed not to help them weather the changes ahead, but primarily to deliver environmental benefits for the rest of society such as cleaner water, greater biodiversity, lower emissions.  They carry a long-standing grievance that environmental improvement consistently comes at their expense.  And they feel that, having been asked by the government to intensify production after the 2008 crash and take on substantial debt to do so, they are now being told to reverse course.

The key finding is not simply that farmers are resistant to change.  It is that adaptation narratives urgently need reframing.  Policies and communications that speak directly to farmers' own interests are far more likely to succeed than those framed around broader societal goods.  It is a lesson with resonance well beyond Ireland's borders.

Dr Susan Hegarty. Credit: Kyran O'Brien

Reimagining How Universities Teach

Institutional Lead for DCU Futures & Professor in Physical and Environmental Geography and Institute for Climate and Society member Dr Susan Hegarty (School of History & Geography) has collaborated with fellow member Dr Darren Clarke on research which addresses the question of how universities themselves must change if they are to equip students for a climate-altered future.

Published in Sustainability, the paper reflects on the inaugural symposium of the Consortium for Adaptive Futures, hosted by Notre Dame University’s Dublin branch in early 2025.  DCU is a member of the Consortium.  The central argument in the paper is that higher education institutions remain wedded to siloed, decontextualised teaching models that leave graduates ill-equipped to grapple with the complex, interconnected challenges of the 21st century.  Challenge-based learning and place-based learning which root student work in real communities and genuine problems are proposed as solutions. 

Cinema as Climate Conscience

Co-Director of the Institute of Climate and Society Dr Pat Brereton’s research brings a different but complementary perspective to bear.  His recent paper in Journalism and Media examines two contrasting films:  The Age of Stupid (2009) and Zone of Interest (2023).  He examines them through the lens of eco-film criticism and an ethics of care.  Where the former is explicit and polemical in its environmental argument, the latter approaches questions of human indifference to horror (and by extension, to ecological destruction) through studied understatement, focusing on a Nazi commandant's family living in comfortable domesticity beside Auschwitz.

Brereton argues that both films, in their very different registers, perform valuable work in keeping environmental consciousness alive in public culture, and that scholars should resist dismissing mainstream or allegorical cinema as insufficiently serious.  Stories and images, Dr Brereton contends, shape how audiences feel their way towards ethical positions and that emotional dimension is precisely what technocratic climate communication so often lacks.

The Climate Transition Plan Scorecard

Dr Aideen O’Dochartaigh (DCU Business School) leads one of the Institute’s key research projects.  In partnership with Business in the Community Ireland, and in collaboration with panel lead Dr Jimmy O’Keeffe (School of History & Geography), Dr O’Dochartaigh has created a new Climate Transition Plan Scorecard.  The team assessed ten leading Irish companies across nine areas of climate and sustainability performance, from greenhouse gas targets and nature commitments to governance, finance and advocacy.

The good news is that ambition is strong.  Most companies have set science-based emissions targets and put meaningful governance structures in place.  Several are investing seriously in decarbonisation, and a number of standout best-practice examples emerged, including SSE's pioneering Just Transition Strategy and Kyndryl's rigorous approach to Scope 3 emissions reporting.

The challenge, the research makes clear, lies in translating ambition into outcomes.  Emissions reductions are happening, but not consistently or quickly enough.  Engagement with nature and just transition remains underdeveloped, with insufficient data available to even score outcomes in those categories.

Taken together, these four bodies of work offer something genuinely encouraging:  a research community that understands the climate crisis as not merely a scientific or technical problem, but a deeply human one:  that is shaped by psychology, narrative, justice, pedagogy, and imagination.