Living on the climate change frontline

DCU graduates thrive all over the earth and, increasingly, they can be found saving the planet too. Ciaran McCormack is a stellar example.

A graduate of DCU’s Bachelor of Business Studies class of 1997, he now holds the Australia and Pacific Manager position at The Climate Reality Project — Al Gore’s nonprofit organisation seeking to catalyse a global solution to the climate crisis by making urgent action a necessity across every sector of society.

Growing up on a dairy farm in Monaghan influenced his calling: “We had a business building underground concrete effluent tanks to capture the effluent from dairy farms to stop it polluting the waterways, so from an early age it was sort of hardwired into me the effects on the natural world of pollution, of agriculture and of the way we live. So that was probably the seed that… drew me to working in the environmental area.”

Ciaran’s journey to his current high-impact role was an interesting one. A summer working in Disneyland in France, along with a globalisation conference in Cologne, ignited his intrigue about what lay beyond Ireland. During a three year stint teaching English in Japan he even organised Yokohama’s inaugural St Patrick’s Day parade, an event the Yakuza (Japanese mafia) sought route diversions for.

He moved to Australia thereafter and his work with the conservation organisation Earth Watch Institute inspired him to undertake a Masters in Sustainability from Monash University in Melbourne. The worsening bush-fires’ situation in Australia means Ciaran is very much living on the frontline of the impending climate crisis, something which makes his work all the more urgent.

“Over the last couple of years we would’ve evacuated maybe six or seven times. We had an evacuation bag at the door with passports, photos, USBs, all that sort of stuff, in case a fire would come through. If you leave it too late…”

“Over the last couple of years we would’ve evacuated maybe six or seven times. We had an evacuation bag at the door with passports, photos, USBs, all that sort of stuff, in case a fire would come through. If you leave it too late…” His call to action now is that as many of the DCU Alumni community as possible undertake The Climate Reality Leadership Corps training this October.

The online course aims to instigate climate action in our industries and effect the change that is so urgently needed, ahead of the all-important COP26 United Nations climate change conference in Glasgow in November. He did this training himself in 2019 while working with an ethical investment fund manager. Ciaran wasted no time implementing the experience, delivering a presentation which helped persuade his company to divest €771 million (AU$1.2 billion) from fossil fuels.

“I’m proud of that one,” he enthuses and explained, “the centrepiece of The Climate Reality Project is training on the impacts and solutions of climate change by Al Gore.” The Monaghan man’s day-to-day work involves helping government and industry leaders urgently implement those very solutions. Saving the Earth? It’s all in a day’s work for the DCU alumnus.

Fionnuala Moran (BA Communication Studies, 2014)

Presenter, Journalist and Current MSc Climate Change: Policy, Media and Society student at DCU @FionnualaMoran