Oscar Mooney holds an M.Sc in Global Change Ecology: Ecosystem Science and Policy from UCD and has experience working in education, research, and project management. Currently based in Cloughjordan Ecovillage, Tipperary, Oscar Mooney also works with ‘Cultivate’, an environmental NGO specialising in systems thinking and supporting community-led initiatives for sustainability. He has been involved in advocacy and climate activism through grassroots organizations and is currently working on initiatives to catalyze community-led climate and social action. He believes communities are the key to transforming our societies so that solidarity, justice, and well-being become the basis on which we relate to one another, to nature, and to ourselves.

“Just Transition offers me hope that we can align social justice with environmental protection and ensure no one is left behind during the low-carbon transition. Global supply chains have been organized around low-cost labour, a disregard human rights, and without consideration for their impacts on the climate or environment. And while climate action has been promoted as a net good, decarbonization is not neutral as mitigation policies have unfortunately marginalized vulnerable societal groups and promoted further inequality as has been seen in job losses. In Just Transition, the global labour movement has offered us an opportunity to unlearn and reimagine our relationship with one another and nature to deliver justice in these complex and challenging times. The outcomes of the transition are undetermined and unknown, but as societies begin to decarbonise there is a “brief and narrow window of time” in which to secure a more fair, equitable, and inclusive world.”