A coalition of industry bodies and environmental campaign groups is calling for a new approach to tackling the ‘triple crunch’ of climate change, recession and rising energy prices.
The resulting campaign, The Green New Deal for Northern Ireland, calls for extensive refurbishment of existing house stock with full insulation and renewable energy, more decentralised, low carbon power generation, transformation of the transport sector and the wealth of job creation that would come with it.
The group has called on government to take a joined-up approach to the recession, rising unemployment, rising energy prices and climate change. It wants investments to cut consumption of fossil fuels and create thousands of jobs, help secure Northern Ireland’s energy supply and build a low-carbon economy. It also calls for the creation of thousands of ‘green collar’ jobs.
The group estimates the total cost of a full green recovery package for Northern Ireland is likely to be about £900m per year.
It says that while at first sight it may appear that the Northern Ireland Executive has its hands tied with most economic policy decisions being made in Westminster, key policy levers – industrial and energy policy, education and training, the environment and social policy – are in devolved hands. It stresses that crippling levels of unemployment coupled with the fact that NI imports 99% of its energy and its fuel bill accounts for around 10% of the country’s income leave the nation in a vulnerable position when looking at the global recession.
The coalition includes the CBI, Energy Savings Trust, Friends of the Earth, Sustainable Development Commission, NI Federation of Housing Associations and Ulster Farmers Union.
For further info see
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/ni_green_new_deal.pdf.