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Project title

Local Examples of Cooperation and Harnessing Experimental Insights to Lower Emissions

Primary Funding Agency

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Co-Funding Organisation(s)

n/a

Lead Organisation

University of Galway

Lead Applicant

Faidhlim McGowan

Project Abstract

Climate change is the defining collective action problem of our time one where the harms are shared, and the paths to successful cooperation are uneven and obscure. This project, 'Local Examples of Cooperation and Harnessing Experimental Insights to Lower Emissions' (LE CHEILE), addresses the urgent need for actionable knowledge on how to spark and sustain cooperation in the face of such challenges. 'Le Cheile' means together in Irish - there is no avenue to successful mitigation of and adaptation to the climate crisis through disparate individual actions, off which others can free-ride. Cooperation is paramount. This project has two core objectives. First, to synthesise lessons from Irish communities and organisations that have successfully worked together to reduce emissions or build resilience. Second, to advance understanding of how people respond to climate cooperation challenges through a series of behavioural experiments. These two components complement each other. The case study synthesis will draw from sectors central to climate mitigation and adaptation, including transport, home energy use, food, and waste reduction. These examples will be analysed to identify the behavioural, institutional, and communicative factors that support effective cooperationan such as perceptions of fairness, leadership, shared identity, and conditional willingness to contribute. This work will directly respond to knowledge gaps identified in the EPA's 2024 report on fostering cooperation. The second phase will involve a series of online experiments testing how the public responds to different framings of collective climate problems. These include: whether people are more willing to cooperate when asked to reduce different behaviours depending on their circumstances (e.g. rural vs urban households); how best to communicate the social harms of carbon-intensive behaviours (negative externalities); and whether a framing of shared contributions to reach a collective goal is more motivating than a framing of shared efforts in restraint (i.e. of emitting carbon) to avoid a collective harm. These experiments will be designed to generate scalable insights for policy, communications, and campaign design. Outputs will include a practical framing toolkit for policymakers and community leaders, open-access data and methods, academic publications, and a national dissemination workshop. The findings will support implementation of the Climate Action Plan 2024 and the EPA research strategy by translating behavioural evidence into usable solutions for collective climate action. This project contributes not only to academic understanding, but to the practical tools needed to reduce emissions and build climate resilience through effective cooperation.

Grant Approved

€163,663.52

Research Hub

Addressing Climate Change Evidence Needs

Research Theme

n/a

Start Date

23/03/2026

Initial Projected Completion Date

22/09/2027