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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
36 July 2021
Environmental Protection Agency to oversee this
work and ensure targets are met”.
Northern Ireland accounted for 4.3% of total
UK greenhouse gas emissions in 2018
generating the equivalent of 10.3 tonnes of CO2
per person compared with a UK figure of 6.8
tonnes of CO2 per person, and the Republic’s
figure of around 13 tonnes.
As Minister, he has also denied there is a
climate emergency. “That is something my
department don’t accept, so, leaving myself to
one side, the ocials in my department don’t
believe that is appropriate language”, he said.
“The advice I have received from my ocials is
that language is not helpful and there is a course
of work we need to engage in and actions we
need to take and we as a department will not be
found wanting”.
He has thus opposed the Climate Change Bill,
proposed by Green Party leader Clare Bailey.
“The Private Members’ Bill has passed its
second reading without any regard toeither the
long term sustainability of our hard-working
agri-food sector, (my emphasis)nor the long
term achievability of the environmental targets
and commitments contained within the Bill”. he
said. He is opposed to the Bill’s target of
achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions
by 2045.
“My role is to try and protect and enhance our
environment in a sustainable way and ensure
that we have a thriving agricultural sector in
which they are custodians of the environment”,
he has stated.
However, Poots’ tenure as party leader may
be short. While able to work with Sinn Féin, he
lacks the ability to accommodate the wings of
the DUP. As leader of a deeply divided party, he
set about rewarding his friends and punishing
his internal enemies. He also seems unable to
control his members, as evidenced by Ian ‘Baby
Doc’ Paisley chanting “Robin Swann is a
danger” to a cue from now nutty Van Morrison.
The party contains three broad
constituencies. There are religious
fundamentalists, who have now seized control.
They include most elected representatives.
They are pulling in an opposite direction to the
secular Unionists, who represent most of the
voters. Then there are libertarians, a term
implausibly adopted by some of the elected
representatives. They currently line up with the
fundamentalists from whom they’re strangely
not that distinguishable.
Assembly elections are due in May next year.
Given the bitter public division, at this stage it
seems unlikely the DUP will remain the largest
party.
That raises the possibility of a Sinn Féin First
Minister. If Poots is still DUP leader then, it’s
hard to see him surviving such a strategic
humiliation.
one year)”, according to the Memorandum.
“NIEA will give a minimum of 7 days notice for a
routine cross-compliance inspection”.
Additionally, “NIEA will also explore new ways
of dealing with low severity incidents and their
impact on cross compliance and the Basic
Payment Scheme...”.
Poots has opposed an independent
Environmental Protection Agency for the North.
“What is wrong with having a system through
which there is accountability to the Chamber for
environmental regulation?” he said. “An
independent environmental protection agency
would not provide that. I can come to the
Chamber and be held to account for the actions
of the Northern Ireland Environment Agency
(NIEA). It has a lot of autonomy, but I can be held
accountable for its actions in a way that I could
not be for the actions of an independent
environmental protection agency”.
In public statements he has modified this
position, but is in no rush. He told Radio Ulster
he considered an environmental strategy to be
of greater importance than its independence.
This is despite the New Decade New Approach
document, on which power-sharing was
relaunched, making the commitment “the
Executive will establish an Independent
F
ocusing on Edwin Poots as a Young
Earth Creationist can divert attention
from more worrying opinions that have
greater practical application.
Poots is currently Minister for
Agriculture, Environment and Rural Aairs in
Northern Ireland’s Executive. He has been quite
a force in that post. In his Register of Interests,
he declares membership of the Ulster Farmers
Union (UFU). He is close to that organisation, the
North’s main farmers’ organisation,
representing large scale farmers. He grew up on
a farm outside Lisburn, Co Antrim, studied at
Greenmount agricultural college and according
to Stormont’s register of interests, Poots worked
on the family farm 40 hours a month but receives
no money. He owns agricultural land at Crossan,
Lisnastrain and Growell and jointly-owns a small
holding in Hillsborough, Co Down.
He was Minister when a Memorandum for
Understanding was drawn up between the
Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA)
and UFU. It makes it more dicult to prosecute
farmers for pollution oences. In any event the
UFU is to promote derogation under the Nitrates
Action Programme for suitable farmers. “NIEA
will not retrospectively inspect records for new
derogation applicants (initially for a period of
NEWS
Wellington Poots
Poots aims to save his party, but on
environmental policy he’s agricultural
By Anton McCabe
