Founded by Maurizio Liberante and Andrew O’Regan in 2022 (originally as Climate Ireland), Climate Local is a nonprofit using climate news to engage people in local climate action.
What are we trying to solve?
There are two main problems with how the Climate Crisis is currently reported on:
- It’s difficult for news readers to gain a broader context into what is happening. This is especially true for people who are ‘casual’ followers of the news, or who are new to looking for information about the Climate Crisis in particular.
- News organisations and social media are disincentivised from pushing people towards taking climate action. Advertising is their lifeblood, and sending people offsite takes away from their revenues. (This is not a value judgement by any means, simply what we see as an accurate description of reality).
How we’re trying to solve these
We take a recent news article and try to give the full context around it, giving readers a better understanding of how things have ended up this way, various ways of thinking about the issues raised, who are the people affected, and what the reader can do to help.
Our approach to climate action is based on the idea that people are more likely to do something if they see an immediate connection to them. We’re currently building a database ‘hyper-local’ actions, tied to news stories, and available freely to everyone.
If you would like to know more about how we’re doing this, or would like an action added to the database please reach out to us.
More about the founders
Maurizio Liberante
Born and bred in Belfast, though half-Italian (hence the name), Maurizio is currently a Solution Architect at Factor Law, a legal services provider.
Maurizio has previously worked with companies ranging from Nando’s to General Electric. He has extensive voluntary experience with organisations like Oxfam, National Trust, NSPCC, Housing Rights, and Ten Foundations working on issues of climate change, child safety, poverty, and social and economic inequality.
Maurizio engages a wide range of content to remain up-to-date and draw connections, particularly in understanding climate change. He recently completed courses with UN Climate Change and the Carbon Literacy Project, and is currently working toward consultant and facilitator certification from Force of Nature.
Andrew O’Regan
Originally from and again based in Kerry, Andrew is a UX Designer and Design Leader, with 15+ years experience working for companies such as Novartis, Musgrave Retail Partners, African Leadership Group, OVO Energy, and the Royal Shakespeare Company.
He is former country lead for Citizens’ Climate Lobby in Ireland, has volunteered with ClimateAction.Tech, and is currently on the board of Kerry Sustainable Energy Co-operative.
A cross-function collaboration and “user-centred” enthusiast, Andrew has a particular interest in smaller, community lead and owned actions for climate change mitigation and adaptation. He is a fellow of Terra.do, and a participant in cohort #2 of OnePointFive Academy.