The UCD Earth Institute is a founding member of the All-Island Climate and Biodiversity Research Network (AICBRN), a major initiative that brings together leading research centre across the whole island of Ireland to tackle the climate and biodiversity emergency where a trans-national approach is essential.
The island of Ireland faces significant challenges and vulnerabilities with respect to climate change and biodiversity. Ireland, by virtue of its size and close interconnections between marine and land-use, communities and industries, provides an excellent platform to trial solutions to address the climate change and biodiversity crises that could become a showcase for an interdisciplinary, collaborative, solution-based approach to these challenges. The island of Ireland has the potential to assume a leadership role exporting many of the solutions required to address these twin challenges.
The issues we will be investigating include:
- Clean energy solutions and how to economically implement these to achieve a societally just transition away from fossil fuels
- Protection and provision of sustainable, high quality water resources and the link with healthy ecosystems
- Improving climate predictions and the level of uncertainty to improve forecasting of adverse weather and flood risk
- Prevention of biodiversity loss, reversing degradation in ecosystems and how to make our natural environment more resilient to climate change.
Key issues that AICBRN will seek to address include those across the fields of climate science, adaptation & mitigation, biodiversity challenges and the just transition. Further details are outlined in All-Island Climate and Biodiversity Research Network report.