Green Campus Podcast Oliver Cunningham

In this episode of the Green Campus podcast, Ava O'Donnell (Greenshoots Communications Intern), interviews Dearbhla Richardson (Greenshoots Communications Intern, SU Environmental Representative and environmental activist) and Niamh Guiry (UCC PhD Candidate and environmental activist) about their experience at COP23.



COP (Conference of the Parties) is a series of United Nations climate change conferences, which have been running since 1995. The purpose of these conferences is to review progress made by members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to combat climate change. COP is the primary decision-making body of the UNFCCC and includes representatives of all countries that are signatories (or ‘Parties’) to the UNFCCC.

In the 20th episode of ‘The Green Campus Podcast’ we talk to UCC’s Energy Manager Pat Mehigan.

Pat talks about his role and responsibilities in relation to the energy infrastructure across our campus. He discusses where our energy comes from and how UCC’s energy consumption has changed in recent years in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and the ongoing energy and climate crises.

He moves on to discuss what changes are being implemented and what plans are in place to meet our 2030 and 2050 targets, including becoming a carbon neutral university by 2040. He finishes by discussing the need for systemic change across all areas of society and the importance of public engagement with our politicians to demand sustainable changes and climate action.

In the 19th installment of the Green campus podcast we talk to Student Support Administrator Natalie O’Byrne.

Natalie talks about her role in the international office which has responsibility for the arrival of over four thousand students from 104 countries each year. Natalie moves on to talk about the swap shop where students can avail of household items left behind by international students.

She talks about how it feeds into the circular economy and the positive reaction to its establishment by both students and staff. She finishes by talking about the challenges in setting it up, how it operates throughout the year and how to engage with the swap shop.

The 18th instalment of the Green Campus podcast is now available where we talk to Professor Justin Holmes, the Professor of Nanochemistry in the School of Chemistry in UCC. Justin first talks about his early career in chemistry.

He moves on to talk about his work in the Radical project, and EU funded research project to develop a brand-new way of detecting atmospheric radicals in real-time. He outlines the collaborative effort on the project alongside the challenges and progress of the project in creating a prototype.

He moves on to talk about his work in another EU funded project, the Translate project that aims to develop a new nanofluidic platform technology to effectively convert waste heat to electricity. He finishes by talking about how these new technologies can assist in meeting our 2030 and 2050 energy targets.

The 17th installment of the UCC Green Campus podcast is now available where we talk to Dr. Fionn Rogan, Senior Research Fellow in MaREI. 

Fionn begins by talking about how he first started working on issues of climate change and sustainability. He talks about a paper he co-authored ‘Improving energy savings from a residential policy: A new model to inform better retrofit decisions’.

Fionn moves on to discuss how important retrofitting is and the sheer scale of change that is required to allow us to meet our 2030 and 2050 climate targets in Ireland. He talks about the CAPACITY Project and Imagining 2050 Project and finishes by discussing his role in coordinating and contributing to the Mock UCC COP26 event in October 2022. 

Calum and Fiach talk about their role in the LIVE project down on the Iveragh peninsula. This project enables coastal communities to promote their natural and cultural assets and how to create opportunities for sustainable tourism. They talk about the rich environment of the Iveragh peninsula, the studies and surveys they carry out to produce different resources, and the community engagement in the region.

They move on to talk about the reintroduction of a meadow at the Valentia Meteorological Observatory. They describe the conditions needed for a meadow, the results achieved in respect of the flower and fauna that inhabit the meadow, and how you can have your own meadow in your back garden. They finish by talking about how meadows and the live project feed into the national discussion on Ireland’s biodiversity.  The LIVE project has been co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund through its Ireland Wales Cooperation Programme.