How is Northern Ireland supposed to deliver real climate action when the Tories are pulling the rug from underneath us with their cruel budget cuts.
We already have disgustingly long waiting lists, roads that are falling to pieces, sky high public transport costs, food and energy costs are going through the roof and there is no end in sight.
The cost of living is literally pushing people to the brink - and where, oh where, are the grants to help people help the planet and themselves to get off killer fossil fuels and save some money? They are few are far between, I’ll tell you.
Read more: NI road deaths: Serious concern as pedestrian fatalities mount
You would think when politicians make a decision, they would have to consider things like climate acts and the promises they make on the world stage.
You’d think they’d have to consider how they are performing on the carbon cuts we need to hand over a safe and healthy planet to our youngsters.
You would also think they would see this as a huge opportunity to make everything better for everyone and foster a new green economy in the process.
But yet again, we have budgetary and policy failure after failure and there is no one at Stormont to do a damn thing about it.
The more I think about how we are being failed on just about every level possible, the more angry I get.
Yet the opportunities are huge - and that’s what’s got me really stumped.
A report from the International Energy Agency suggests Earth is at the “dawn of a new industrial age” with clean-energy manufacturing jobs estimated to double to nearly 14 million by 2030.
While the global market for tech including solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicle batteries, heat pumps and hydrogen electrolysers could be worth $650 billion a year by the end of the decade. But where is our stake in all this?
Northern Ireland has some of the best engineers in the world - so just imagine what they could do given the right incentives.
I know we have two companies already making waves on the eco-friendly bus front in Wrightbus and Mallaghan and that wind turbines are being built in Belfast by Harland & Wolff.
We should be fostering that ingenuity and encouraging more firms to throw their hats in the ring with solar panels, heat pumps and more to drive the prices down for consumers here.
I recently had my gas boiler serviced and took the chance to have a chat with the young fella doing it.
I asked whether heat pump training was a thing and whether he knew if the industry was going down that route - he told me ‘hydrogen is where it’s at’.
While this might make up a small part of future energy - it’s not ideal that energy is pinning its hope on that one gas which is not necessarily always green.
Hear me out. I think Stormont messed up with gas to the west and has to find a solution for all those pipes the roads have been dug up to install - so they have been going heavy on the hydrogen possibilities.
But if we simply swap gas and oil for hydrogen, people up and the down the country will be leaving one consumer nightmare for another as we are again giving our energy over to energy giants who will still sell to the highest bidder.
And how do we guarantee all the hydrogen future homes will burn will be zero emissions?
If we put most of our eggs in the renewables basket, however, we could be in for a huge fall in energy costs.
The sun and wind could produce most of what we need - backed up by a little clean hydrogen - we just need to upgrade our grid to cope with what’s needed asap.
But back to the point at hand. If the Conservatives came up with a real plan to green the UK, just think of the business chances it would make.
Now I don’t know about you, but from my seat it looks like the self-professed party for ‘a strong economy’ has majorly dropped the ball.
While Ireland is rushing to put solar panels on their schools and retrofit hundreds of thousands of homes - the UK and Northern Ireland are doing next to nothing.
And it’s the people who will suffer.
Rishi might be able to get the grid near his home upgraded so he can heat his swimming pool - but what about the rest of us.
If there’s one thing they should be focusing on, it’s energy security.
We don’t want or need more oil or gas.
What we do need is grants for retrofits, ground source heat pumps, cuts to the cost of public transport, a focus on green energy and to encourage builders to do everything they can to protect nature and cut fossil fuels.
The economic benefits and job opportunities would be huge and we could see new industries rising in Northern Ireland and across the Northern Ireland and GB that make lives better, not worse.
Just think of the apprenticeships and job opportunities it could provide for the next generation.
Coronation tat
Today is the day Charles and Camilla will be crowned King and Queen of the UK. For some it’s a huge day of celebration while others won’t be that interested.
But let’s have a think about the raft of rubbish people will buy to celebrate this weekend.
Waste collection company Divert has raised major concerns about the tons of “cheap plastic coronation souvenirs” people are buying that will later end up in landfill.
Gone are the days when we made our costumes at home and used what we had, or made new things from what we had, to celebrate big events like this.
Nowadays retailers up and down these isles view such celebrations as a chance to ramp up their profits with a plethora of throwaway paraphernalia marketed so hard we feel we’re missing out if we don’t jump on the bandwagon.
“Every bank holiday brings a spike in waste,” says Divert.co.uk spokesperson Mark Hall.
“But we think we might be up to our necks in plastic waste come the Tuesday after the party.
“It’ll be like Christmas and Easter rolled into one.”
If you haven’t rushed to one of our many supermarkets to stock up on coronation plates, bunting, crowns, T-shirts, plastic cups and more - why not use what you already have around the house to keep the waste down.
But if you’ve already swallowed the blue pill, please do what you can separate the waste out to ensure as much of it as possible gets recycled.
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