The Earth's Corr: Stormont needs to wise up about the climate crisis and do its job
Does our government really care about climate change - or do they just pay lip service to the global crisis creeping into every aspect of our lives? That’s a question I ask myself regularly.
Yes, they react to disasters like last year’s flooding as they happen - come up with reports on how to do better, cut down trees to install flood barriers I’m still not convinced of and dish out a bit of money for those impacted.
But when it comes to things like planning for a future that will protect us from the worst of what’s to come - they’re really left wanting.
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With so much hitting people across Northern Ireland on a daily basis, I know climate is often the last thing on many minds. A government that fails to drive home how life changing it will be in the coming years is partly to blame for that - and they use the resulting lack of urgency from the public on the matter to their advantage, in my opinion.
When I write about the lack of grants and funding for people to retrofit their homes - a move that would reduce spiralling fuel costs and make our homes warmer and more climate friendly - it doesn’t get much traction.
When wildfires across Europe see the likes of olive oil prices rocket in our supermarkets - the link with climate is rarely made.
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We’re still building homes on flood plains, allowing developments destroying the very nature we need to offsets carbon emissions and don’t even get me started on how polluted our waters are and the impact climate has had on Lough Neagh.
Climate will impact everything we need to survive. Yet we have a government department and Mid and East Antrim Council facing judicial reviews over their failure to stop huge new fossil fuel projects like Cloghan Oil Terminal and gas turbines at Kilroot power station.
Northern Ireland’s top judge, Lady Chief Justice Siobhan Keegan, also branded former DAERA Minister Edwin Poots’ approval of Larne Lough Gas Caverns ‘irrational’ for reasons “including the interface with climate commitments in Northern Ireland”.
Her decision to quash the marine licence for the major fossil fuel storage project is now going to the Supreme Court - because it would seem our ministers didn’t like that outcome.
And that really grates on me for a number of reasons - the first being when the courts step in and overturn decisions made by our minister, they can’t take it.
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Is it because they don’t like being held to account in the courts? Or do they really just want to keep building fossil fuel infrastructure in NI while they can?
None of these decisions have the people’s best interests at heart - as the more oil and gas infrastructure we have - the longer they are tying us into expensive oil and gas bills when renewables are so much cheaper now.
Bear that in mind when I remind you that the renewable electricity being added to our grid has actually fallen over the past two years - according to the Department for Economy’s own figures.
When you delve into the stats for what is actually being delivered - 82.3% comes from wind while solar power is a paltry part (3.8%) of our supposed renewables revolution.
Agri-foods and forestry friendly renewables like biomass and biogas, however, are now providing a combined 11.5% of our renewables.
Solar is cheap and it doesn’t emit or create more gas - so why aren’t schools and hospitals being fitted with solar when it could drive down electricity costs for publicly funded buildings like the new solar farm at Hydebank will.
Wind and solar should be where we are largely heading and electrification of the entire grid should be the goal.
I know these energy problems are quite complex and you will hear people hydrogen is the future - but there are three types of hydrogen and only one of them is good for the environment and to create that we need more wind turbines.
Despite that only four new wind farms have been added to the grid in the past decade in Northern Ireland.
So it’s no wonder lay people, community groups and environmental NGOs feel they have no choice but to keep challenging Stormont decisions in the courts.
They still aren’t even close to delivering for all of us and I’ll happily be proved wrong when the latest Programme for Government drops on Monday.
I thought it a bit odd they held a presser to talk about it without anyone being given the details of what it contains seven long months after MLAs were elected and the Executive put in place.
I had a look at the last one - from 2021 - and protecting the environment was number two in their list of plans after “giving children the best start in life”.
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But when their parents live in drafty homes that cost a fortune to keep warm in the winter; the natural world that protects them from flooding, helps grow their food and cleans the air is being decimated and the water sources that provide what’s coming out of their taps is being polluted to within an inch of its life - are they really giving our kids the best start in life.
The last PfG stated: “Our health is affected by the quality of the environment.
“We should all help to reduce the pollution that causes climate change so that people can enjoy the environment in the future.”
That pollution poisons our air, our rivers and lakes and is decimating insect populations and fish that keep ecosystems intact and provide food for us.
They said ‘we want to’:
Protect and help the environment
Reduce the pollution that causes climate change
Create buildings that are good for people and the environment
Improve people's homes so they last a long time and are cheaper to keep warm
Help people choose transport that causes the least amount of pollution
Produce less rubbish and recycle more of it
Improve the way we manage fresh water and drains.
I know some of those things take time and the current environment minister appears to be spending his time mopping up messes left by the last one, but overall the Executive is not delivering on any of that.
We’re still waiting for changes to building regulations that will ensure new homes are fit for the future, our public transport costs keep going up - which is no way encourages more people onto buses and trains, NI Water has nowhere near the amount of money is needs to stop polluting our waterways with sewage; I see no reduction in waste or pollution that’s causing the climate crisis and our Exec, some MLAs, councils and planners appear to be absolutely clueless when it comes to protecting the environment in any real way.
Why are we building more roads when we need to get fossil car numbers down and make bus and rail and viable alternative?
Why are public transport fares continuing to rise when other countries are making them as cheap as possible to help with that drive?
Why are fossil fuel boilers being fitted in homes, tying families into over a decade more hugely expensive oil and gas?
And why is our government not doing everything in their power to track and reduce air pollution, clean up our waters and implement a long-overdue planning reform that puts nature, wellbeing and environmentally friendly living at the heart of everything we do?
I have so many questions - and I am sure you do too. I live in hope that at least some of them will be answered when the new Programme for Government lands on Monday.
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