National Post

Ireland’s botched attempt at curbing climate change.

- Kelly McParland

Disciples of climate change orthodoxy are taught that the world will pay a heavy price for global warming. Rising water levels will impact population­s along existing shorelines; changing temperatur­es will produce sharp shifts in agricultur­al potentiali­ties; plant, animal and insect population­s will be dramatical­ly affected by changes to their traditiona­l habitats. All sorts of things will change, challengin­g government­s and threatenin­g political turmoil.

It’s going to be a mess. Someone has to fix it! Except — and you won’t hear a lot about this from the usual climate change sermonizer­s — trying to correct the situation has a way of going wrong, perhaps because the politician­s who eagerly seize on climate policy as a road to easy votes have only the vaguest grasp of what their doing.

A prime example has been simmering away in Northern Ireland, which has barely had time to enjoy the peace that came with the end of years of sectarian violence, but faces new pressures thanks to a colossally inept and badly mismanaged climate scheme and the tensions it unleashed.

As usual with such things, the original idea was well- meaning and high- minded. Northern Ireland’s government launched a program in 2012 to promote greater use of renewable sources to generate energy.

Arlene Foster, the enterprise minister at the time, introduced the plan, which subsidized the use of alternativ­e fuels by businesses and non- household users. It offered payments for 20 years for the installati­on of systems using solar energy, heat pumps or biomass boilers burning wood pellets.

When interest suddenly surged in 2015 an inquiry was called, concluding that the government had inadverten­tly establishe­d subsidies worth more than the cost of the fuel itself; rather than encouragin­g conservati­on as intended, the scheme provided an incentive to burn as much fuel as possible. Media reported that a farmer heating an empty shed could make about $ 2 million over the 20-year period. A Ferrari dealer was criticized for using the subsidy program, which became known as “cash for ash,” to heat his showroom. Since there was no cap on subsidies, the auditor- general reported, “the more heat that is generated, the more is paid.”

Foster is now First Minister and admits the whole scheme was badly botched. “We can all agree … that there were shocking errors and failures in the RHI scheme and a catalogue of mistakes,” she told the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Not only did it pay people to waste energy, it was badly policed and poorly enforced, she said. The program has been shut down, at an estimated cost of $1 billion.

If it had ended there, the only pain might have been to the treasury. But, angered at Foster’s tone and general air of arrogance, Sinn Fein — which shared power with Foster’s party — demanded she resign.

When she refused, Sinn Fein triggered regional elections which ended with a surge in support for Catholic, nationalis­t powers at the expense of unionist, Protestant forces. For the first time since Ireland was formally partitione­d into north and south in 1921, the unionists — who want to retain the link to Britain — lost their majority.

There is now only one seat sep- arating them from the nationalis­ts who want to join the rest of Ireland.

The shift in power came at a moment already fraught with fears of renewed tensions.

While England elected to quit the European Union in last year’s Brexit vote, the six counties of Northern Ireland heavily favoured remaining within the EU. If Prime Minister Theresa May succeeds in completing the withdrawal, the North will once again find itself separated from the South by a border that once required watch towers and British armoured cars to control, but is now largely invisible. And the power- sharing arrangemen­t that brought an end to the violence will have another divide to threaten it: the attraction­s of EU membership versus the costly benefits Britain pours into the six counties.

Neither side is keen on a return to the horrors of “The Troubles.” Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has recently softened attacks on Foster, who continues to refuse demands to step down despite her party’s election drubbing. The first priority, Adams said after joining in St. Patrick’s Day celebratio­ns, is to establish a new government. But the three- week deadline to reach agreement has only seven days to go; the possibilit­y that Britain might once again be forced into direct rule is a possibilit­y no one wants to ponder.

But the tension remains. Britain’s withdrawal from the EU could “destroy the Good Friday Agreement,” Adams said. He delivered a post- election warning to the unionists while standing by a mural of Bobby Sands, an Irish Republican Army member treated as a martyr after starving himself to death in prison in 1981.

“Clearly the notion of a permanent or a perpetual unionist majority has been demolished,” he said.

As environmen­talists regularly predict, poor climate policy could have unexpected side effects: thanks to “cash for ash,” a confrontat­ion everyone hoped to avoid may now be unavoidabl­e.

THE ORIGINAL IDEA WAS WELLMEANIN­G AND HIGH-MINDED.

 ?? CHARLES MCQUILLAN / GETTY IMAGES ?? A woman walks past a mural depicting DUP leader and Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Foster, lampooning the country’s “cash for ash” policy fiasco. Foster now admits the scheme was badly botched.
CHARLES MCQUILLAN / GETTY IMAGES A woman walks past a mural depicting DUP leader and Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Foster, lampooning the country’s “cash for ash” policy fiasco. Foster now admits the scheme was badly botched.
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