Trócaire is the official overseas development agency of the Catholic Church in Ireland. It was set up by the Irish Catholic Bishops in 1973 to express the concern of the Irish Church for the suffering of the world's poorest and most oppressed people.
Trócaire’s partnership approach makes us different. We work through global Catholic networks and with local partners on the ground. When we help people, we work with them, so that they drive the entire process themselves. Solutions are not imposed on the people we help. Instead, they become the authors of their own destiny.
We're working on the causes and consequences of climate change both at home and overseas.
Among communities who are affected by changing rainfall patterns, increasing droughts or flooding, we work to support people to adapt.
For example, in places vulnerable to floods, we're helping communities to prepare by identifying the areas worst at risk of flooding and by setting up early-warning systems so that communities are alerted before a flood hits.
In areas where drought is becoming more common, we're working with communities to capture and store water, to use more drought resistant crops, and to look at different ways of generating income so that they are not solely dependent on agriculture.
But there is a limit to how much people can adapt to climate change, and there is an urgent need to limit as much as possible the amount of future climate change. In Ireland, Trócaire is lobbying the Irish government to keep its promise to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by bringing in a Climate Change Bill and by putting a price on carbon.
Global problems require global solutions. A fair and effective international agreement on climate change is a key focus of our work. Recognising that as an organisation we have an ‘ecological footprint’, Trócaire has undertaken a carbon audit of our activities to guide us and inform us on how we can take steps to reduce our own ecological footprint.