The case for a Climate Change Bill.

Ian Humphreys is the Chief Executive of Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful

Climate change is a global challenge, that demands a global response. When we are faced with such a huge problem, that is vast in its complexity and contains many different required responses, it can, for a small population like Northern Ireland, feel like the cost of inaction is relatively small. However, in this piece I want to outline why we cannot wait to act and why having a local Climate Change Bill is critical for all our futures.

This week in the Assembly, we saw the Green Party Leader, Clare Bailey, introduce a private members bill outlining provisions for a Northern Ireland Climate Change Act that would set a binding target of net zero carbon emissions by 2045. Importantly, there are measures in the bill that tackle water pollution and loss of nature locally. I know there are going to be some who are reading this and thinking, well so what? What does this mean to me?

The answer is; a great deal. Everything from how we feed ourselves, how healthy we are physically and mentally to our economic development, is hugely impacted by climate change. We are starting off on the back foot. Scientists have been warning us literally for decades of the huge impacts of climate change and the cost of inaction. David Attenborough has more recently stated that society itself is at risk if we do nothing. So we need to be ambitious in our goals and have a concrete plan to achieve them.

Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK remaining that has no dedicated act in this area. Whilst we can lament the slowness of our action on this, it does provide us with an opportunity to learn from the experiences of our devolved partners on this issue and add to our own act to make it even more effective.

A local Climate Change Act is imperative if we are to harness a collective effort behind achieving deliverable targets and taking meaningful action. There are no easy solutions to achieving the large carbon reductions required. It will require many sectors to think and work differently in the future. But the costs of not acting are clear and more devastating for us all in the long run.

In essence, the collective will we need is critical, because the challenge is so great. Northern Ireland cannot hide from this, nor can we afford to think that such a small place cannot make a difference. If every country took that attitude, we would do nothing. But we can do something and in preserving this planet we should all be prepared to play our part in reversing the impacts of our collective behaviour on our climate and on biodiversity.

This really is an emergency and when as a sector we say that, it is not to be alarmist: it is to be honest and spell out clearly the challenges facing society. We welcome this bill and the forthcoming bill from DAERA and look forward to the best of both creating an Act that sets Northern Ireland apart in its ambition to deliver timely and meaningful change. Ambitious targets on carbon emission reductions must underpin the final Act. Aiming for the top of the mountain will get us further faster than something less stretching, and with improving technology targets that seem impossible now, will move within our reach.

We have just the one habitable planet; we need to take action now to save ourselves from making large parts of it uninhabitable, putting unpredictable strains on the remaining parts. Only by long-term thinking and changing the way we travel, work, consume and live, can we make a real difference.