Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
POOTS LAUNCHES GREEN STRATEGY
Consultation is launched to identify climate crisis response
A PUBLIC consultation has been launched on Northern Ireland’s first environment strategy.
Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Minister Edwin Poots said it will form part of the Executive’s ‘green growth’ framework as he announced it at COP26 in Glasgow.
Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK and Ireland without climate legislation.
Two Climate Bills with different targets are making their way through Stormont processes.
Minister Poots said: “Northern Ireland faces a range of local environmental challenges, including habitat and species loss, agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, waste management, the development of a circular economy, soil quality, air quality and waste crime.
“Urgent action is required if we are to realistically respond to the challenges of climate change, the destruction of habitats, the loss of biodiversity and the impacts of pollution on land and at sea.”
The plan covers a range of sectors from agriculture to planning, biodiversity, climate change and the circular economy.
It outlines plans for a range of further strategies on clean air and ammonia emissions, which both impact human health and the environment, as well as litter.
CONSULTATION
Not once is oil or petroleum mentioned despite new applications for petroleum licences while gas is only termed in reference to greenhouse gases.
Mining and quarrying are also missing from the strategy as is any indication of when Northern Ireland might get an independent environmental protection agency.
Minister Poots concluded: “I would urge everyone to actively participate in this consultation.”
The consultation will remain open for comment until January 18 next year and can be accessed at www. daera-ni.gov.uk/ consultations.
Joanne Sherwood, Director of RSPB Northern Ireland, welcomed the strategy’s “commitments, including protecting 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030, peatland restoration, a Seabird Conservation
Strategy, and providing the necessary resources to improving the natural environment”.
She added: “However, given the Executive’s previous failure to act to address the nature crisis, it is essential that ambitious targets and time-frames are set and adhered to.”
newsni@mirror.co.uk
It is essential ambitious targets are set and adhered to