Talking about the climate emergency with friends, neighbours and colleagues is one of the best ways to create lasting change. One major barrier to having these conversations is the worry that you don’t know enough.

These three sessions will take you through the Climate Literacy Project accredited Fife Climate Knowhow programme and the Climate Fresk tool with the option of becoming a facilitator able to run sessions in your school, department or community. The sessions will give you the knowledge and confidence to talk about the science, causes and impacts of climate change. You’ll also find out about the actions we can take to mitigate it as well as plan sessions and gain skills in facilitation.

Booking this event will sign you up for all sessions – Tuesday 16th April, Tuesday 23rd April and Tuesday 30th April (9.30am to 12.30pm) The facilitator training is on 7th May. All sessions are in person.

The training is organised by Transition University St Andrews and Greener Kirkcaldy.

Community groups from across Fife were thrilled to receive an early Christmas present this year as over £25,000 was distributed across the region for climate action projects and events.

Community Climate Grants are a collaboration of two funds being offered by Fife Climate Hub and Climate Action Fife. A total of £27,500 was made available. £7,500 from the Small Grants Fund and £20,000 from the Seed and Development Grants. A total of 31 projects can now be delivered by 25 community groups as a result of the funding which launched in September.

“We were thrilled to receive applications from so many and such a variety of community groups from across Fife. It means a lot to us that people can feel empowered to take action on the climate crisis in ways that meets the needs of their communities and is within their reach.”

“It’s also great that we are now able to see the Fife Climate Festival coming together with the number of groups that applied to hold events during the festivals debut from February 25 to March 3 2024,” said Fife Climate Hub Manager Craig Leitch.

Two distinct grants were available. The Small Grants Fund of up to £500 for climate-related events in the community and the Seed and Development Grant offered up to £1,000 for climate-related activities and projects. Together they made up the Community Climate Grants, which went on offer in October 2023.

The resulting funds which were put into the community groups bank accounts this month means groups such as the Bats Wood Project in Levenmouth can forge ahead with plans to create living willow sculptures of wolves and an associated video called “Becoming Wolves in Bat’s Wood”. The sculptures will be a habitat for wildlife and will allow the Levenmouth Academy project to manage deer without the use of plastic.

Pauline Latto and Donald Grieve from Fife Curnie Clubs, a Fife Alcohol and Support Service (FASS) project are over the moon that they will be able to support people who are socially isolated. They plan to bring people together in their community growing veg and plants at the garden at Bennochy Community Hub in Kirkcaldy. 

Upon receiving their grant Mr Grieve said: “You have made an old man very happy. My staff have been talking about saving the planet a little at a time. Thank you for this.”

“Pauline Latto is the member of staff who will be working on this for us, she is presently doing cartwheels down Leven High Street! Pauline is our biggest eco warrior. She has been responsible for our shift to sustainable futures for us all. It also fits with our core activities and will enhance them. This is a small grant but that can go a long way, we are all really interested in the outcomes from this and of course having a hand in making it work.” he added.

Gail Miller at Friends of Pittencrieff Park, Dunfermline said: “Thanks for the good news, it was a good start to my day. I’m looking forward to acting on the project.” The Friends have two projects which will benefit from the funds: A book box, or free library box, in the park for everyone to use and recycle books keeping them out landfill. They hope this will promote discussion on re-using existing books and the climate. And the activity is raising plants in their greenhouse to distribute to the local foodbank to promote wellbeing and clean air.

Burntisland Community Development Trust received money to pilot upcycling and upskilling workshops. The series of six workshops led by local people sharing their skills in sewing and repairing clothes, making jewellery, reusing fabric to make things like rag rugs and bags, propagating plants and even electrical repairs and PAT testing.

Applicants for the Small Grants funding were encouraged to hold events during next year’s Fife Climate Festival which will run in communities across the Fife from 24th February to 3rd March 2024. Forgan Arts Centre, a member of Fife Climate Hub’s network, FCCAN, will use their funding to hold Climate Action Workshops and Climate Conversations during the festival.

Funded groups

Here is a list of all the groups that received a Community Climate Grant:

All of the projects will be delivered by 3rd March 2024. Find out more about Community Climate Grants.

The UN’s climate conference, COP28, is happening in the United Arab Emirates. Here’s a quick update:

Good News

The conference started well. On day one, they sorted out the agenda, so there will be no fights over what can and can’t be discussed during the summit. They’ve also begun work on the global stock take, and we can expect a draft text soon.

A few hours after the opening ceremony, COP agreed and acted on the loss and damage fund. This fund, decided at COP27, faced tough negotiations recently.

On day one, countries started making financial pledges. The United Arab Emirates, the host nation, led with $100 million. Other big economies followed. This shows that rich countries agree to help poorer ones deal with climate impacts.

What’s Next?

In the coming days, there will be long discussions about small details. Decisions in a Climate Summit need everyone to agree, making it seem slow. But it also means everyone is committed to the decisions made.

The Climate Summit is crucial. It’s where all countries decide how to handle the climate emergency together. Without it, every country would act alone.

Environmental Impact

You might wonder about the carbon footprint of the summit itself. The carbon cost is much less compared to the potential impact of COP in reducing carbon emissions. The carbon cost of the COP26 summit in Glasgow was out-stripped 72,200 times by the prize of the carbon that global agreements at COP can cut.

Resources

Carbon footprint of a COP © Sustainability Unlocked

If you want to learn more about UN climate summits, check out this helpful infographic by Sustainability Unlocked, an online learning platform.

Ea O Neill, Community Engagement Team Manager, Greener Kirkcaldy

Climate Action Fife offers free Fife ClimateKnowhow training to help build understanding of the climate emergency.

Join us for a fun, free and informative workshop that will help you understand climate change.

You will work as a team to find relationships between 42 climate cards. Each card represents a cause or effect of climate change. Together you will link the cards to build a collage that explains climate change. Collective intelligence and collaboration will get you to a solution!

This step-by-step, cooperative activity will help you work through the complexity of climate change. You will also get to be creating by decorating and naming your finished collage.

Climate Fresk is perfect for those who know that climate change is important but feel that they would like to understand it more. There is no need for any previous climate knowledge; the workshop is a learning experience.

Climate Fresk is a French-based NGO with the aim to make climate science more accessible. More than 350,000 people have played worldwide.

Join us for a fun, free and informative workshop that will help you understand climate change.

You will work as a team to find relationships between 42 climate cards. Each card represents a cause or effect of climate change. Together you will link the cards to build a collage that explains climate change. Collective intelligence and collaboration will get you to a solution!

This step-by-step, cooperative activity will help you work through the complexity of climate change. You will also get to be creating by decorating and naming your finished collage.

Climate Fresk is perfect for those who know that climate change is important, but feel that they would like to understand it more. There is no need for any previous climate knowledge; the workshop is a learning experience.

Climate Fresk is a French-based NGO with the aim to make climate science more accessible. More than 350,000 people have played worldwide.

You can read about a previous Climate Fresk workshop we delivered here.

Booking information

This workshop is free to attend, but spaces are limited so booking is required.

If you have any problems booking or any questions, please phone 01592 858458 or email info@greenerkirkcaldy.org.uk

Accessibility

There are accessible parking bays available outside 8 East Fergus Place. We have a ramp into the building and level access throughout. There is also an accessible toilet.

This event is planned to take place in a room that is situated up a flight of stairs with no lift access. We can arrange to move the event to a more accessible location if required. Please do not hesitate to book on and state that you need level access to attend the event when you get to the special requirements section of the booking form.

If you have any other accessibility questions please phone 01592 858458 or email info@greenerkirkcaldy.org.uk.

Climate Action Fife’s Public Sector Engagement Liaison Officer Hayley Williamson is leaving for pastures new and our partner Fife Council is looking for someone to fill her shoes!

The postholder will work with the wider Climate Action Fife project team to deliver the ambitions of the project. This is an exciting opportunity to help tackle the climate emergency.

The post has a specific role to:

    • Develop and deliver Climate Knowhow courses to Fife Council and public sector partners. The course is accredited by the Carbon Literacy Project (Fife Council is a bronze-level Carbon Literate Organisation).
    • Support communities to develop climate-informed local place and community plans.
    • Develop and deliver communications campaigns, engagement talks, workshops and events
    • Support community planning partners to integrate climate action into their work and into their engagement with staff and the public.
    • Liaise with Fife Environmental Partnership and other public-sector stakeholders and support them to obtain organisational climate literate accreditation.
Applications for this post close on Monday 28 November 2022. Full details

Coming soon! As part of our new #ClimateActionFife project, CLEAR is excited to be planning some online cooking demonstrations on creating delicious meals from leftovers and using local, seasonal food.

Scottish households throw away 600,000 tonnes of food waste every year with a value of up to £437 per year per household, not in our pockets! As well as being a waste of good food and money, it’s also a huge waste of all the resources that have gone into producing the food i.e. the fuel for the farm machinery, the farmer’s time and energy planting and harvesting, the water it took to grow the crops, the fuel used transporting the food to the food manufacturer, the materials used to package the food and much more, which all lead to the production of unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions. By reducing food waste, you can save money, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and help preserve resources for future generations.

So what can you do to help?

  1. Don’t overbuy. Make meal plans and shopping lists (and stick to them!) to avoid buying too much food.
  2. Check the use-by date on the food you buy. Those with the longest use-by dates are usually at the back of the shelves in shops. Be aware that “sell by” is used by manufacturers to ensure foods have a long shelf life after purchase. “Use by” is the last date recommended for use.
  3. Love your freezer. Freeze anything you won’t use immediately that may go off if left in the fridge or batch cook and freeze it for later use.
  4. Use your leftovers. Either re-heat or adapt to make another meal.
  5. Buy local (seasonal) food. This will reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport, storage and packaging and is usually fresher and tastes better!
  6. Compost your waste food. Put it in your brown bin (not your blue landfill bin!) or make your own compost.

If you can’t wait for our workshops, have a look at these links and be inspired to make a change!

Deliciously Ella

BBC Good Food

Love Food Hate Waste

Friends of the Earth

Greener Scotland

Climate Action Fife is a Fife-wide partnership project, bringing together individuals, communities, local government and businesses to tackle the climate emergency. It is funded by The National Lottery Community Fund’s Climate Action Fund. #ClimateActionFife

Part One

As part of our new #ClimateActionFife project, EATS is excited to be planning some online cooking demonstrations. You may already be aware that a large part of our project has been focused on the redistribution of surplus food with the aim of reducing food waste. But do you know what really links the two? Is it obvious how what we buy for dinner, what we do with our ingredients and how we cook it is affecting the climate?

They may seem like disconnected issues, but there are a number of factors that make your everyday choices very powerful indeed.

LIMITED RESOURCES

Firstly, the issue EATS have been focused on – reducing the amount of waste from supermarkets, local businesses and within households. We like to say we are feeding bellies, not bins, but how does that help? There are two huge problems related to this, the first is simply the huge waste of resources extracted from the planet, potentially going through many stages, journeys and transformations before we eat it. So for what is scraped from our plates is effectively wasting all the energy that powered the farm machinery, the farmer’s time and energy planting and harvesting, the water it took to grow the crops, the fuel we burnt transporting the food to the food manufacturer, the materials used to package the food, and much more besides. In the UK, agriculture is responsible for 10% of greenhouse gas emissions, 83% of ammonia air pollution, and 16% of water pollution. (What to eat Food and the environment | Friends of the Earth)

With limited resources this puts more and more pressure on the planet and all of its’ interconnected ecosystems. 

Have you heard of Earth Overshoot Day? This is the date in the calendar year when humanity has used as much ecological resources as the planet’s natural ecosystems can regenerate in the whole year – in 2020 Earth Overshoot Day was reached on August 22

WHERE DOES IT ALL GO?

Secondly when food is thrown in the bin, it can sometimes (though not always) end up on a landfill site. You may think food is biodegradable but in huge landfill sites food waste piles up high in a compacted area in anaerobic conditions, that is, without oxygen. In this scenario it creates methane gas and this can be more than 20 times more effective at heat-trapping than a molecule of carbon dioxide, as in leading to global warming. Alternatives at home can include composting and alternatives on a large scale can be to generate energy from this food waste, but ideally of course we would generate less waste in the first place!

Have you discovered this great new channel? Full of documentaries and short films with opportunities to take action – here’s a great film we found looking at one couple’s challenge to eat nothing but ‘wasted food’ Waterbear | Just Eat It 

THE FINANCIAL LOSS

Thirdly – the pennies on your plate. According to Food waste facts and figures | Greener Scotland avoidable food and drink waste costs Scottish households nearly £1.1billion in unnecessary purchases each year.

Scottish households throw away 600,000 tonnes of food waste every year with a value of up to £437 per year per household, not in our pockets! 

We may think the majority of waste is coming from supermarkets and business and that we are helpless to make change. However 61% of food waste in Scotland occurs in the home so we can really make a difference by thinking about every single thing we put on our plates. Food waste: The environmental impact | How To Waste Less (zerowastescotland.org.uk)

There are signs of progress as people become more aware of the impact of wasting food. Between us, across the UK we’re saving just under £5 billion a year compared with 2007, not to mention saving 5.0 million tonnes of CO2 – that’s like taking 2.1 million cars off the road. (LFHW) 

If you would like to learn more and help make even more of a reduction in the carbon emissions of food waste we recommend some further reading and listening. Dive into these links and be inspired to make a change! 

Climate Action Fife is a Fife-wide partnership project, bringing together individuals, communities, local government and businesses to tackle the climate emergency. It is funded by The National Lottery Community Fund’s Climate Action Fund. #ClimateActionFife

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