The Sinn Féin president, Mary Lou McDonald, has told her party’s Ard Fheis that “agriculture must be supported as it reduces emissions”.
The Sinn Féin leader also warned today (Saturday, November 11) that “the climate crisis is real. The clock is ticking”.
She said: “Damage caused by recent flooding across Ireland shows the impact of climate change. Government talks a big game but is short on delivery.
“It’s not enough to set targets, you have to clock up achievements. People must be enabled to play their part.”
The Sinn Féin president said that her party had gathered in Athlone with their “sights set on building a future where workers, families and communities come first”.
She stressed that housing was Sinn Féin’s “number one priority” and that her party would “bring thousands of vacant homes back into use”.
Climate
In her presidential address she also focused on climate issues.
“We live in a global village. Planet earth, our home, is burning,” Deputy McDonald said.
She highlighted that the “ecological catastrophe on Lough Neagh, urgently requires a response based on public ownership”.
According to the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) excess nutrients from agricultural activities and wastewater pressures are “primarily” to blame for a growth of blue-green algae in Northern Ireland’s waters.
During her address Deputy McDonald questioned the government’s approach to climate challenges and warned that “under the National Retrofitting Scheme ordinary households haven’t a hope of retrofitting their homes”.
“We need a new scheme, one that’s actually affordable, and that’s what Sinn Féin would deliver,” she added.
The party’s spokesperson on environment and climate action, Darren O’Rourke, also told the Ard Fheis that “the scale of the climate and biodiversity crises that confront us cannot be overstated”.
Deputy O’Rourke said that “the historical failure to take radical ambitious action has already produced devastating consequences”.
“Recent floods across the country have laid bare the havoc that a changing climate can bring, in just a few hours many homes and businesses were badly damaged some to the point of no return.
“Indeed earlier in the year at the Shannon Callows, just outside this town Athlone, we had the longest summer flood ever.
“Thousands of hectares of land were left underwater preventing animals from grazing and farmers from saving hay and silage. Climate, weather and mismanagement the cause. The climate and biodiversity is worsening,” he added.