Councillors have shown unanimous support for a motion requesting action to be taken on the climate crisis, calling it a “time sensitive issue.”

At the full meeting of Fermanagh and Omagh District Council on Tuesday, July 2, SDLP Councillor Adam Gannon put forward a motion requesting the Council to acknowledge the scale of the climate crisis and to establish an all-party working group on climate change resilience. In the motion, proposer Councillor Gannon highlighted that the role of the working group will be to explore how to mitigate the crisis and protect citizens from existing and future effects of climate breakdown and to investigate measures the Council can take to limit its impact on climate change.

SDLP Councillor John Coyle seconded the motion, stating: “It is important that we protect our communities, our citizens and especially our environment here in Fermanagh and Omagh.”

Highlighting the area’s “unique biodiversity,” Councillor Coyle added: “We need to protect the flora and fauna of our environment so I ask the chamber to support the motion.”

Agreeing with the “vast importance of this issue,” Cross Community Labour Alternative (CCLA) Councillor Donal O’Cofaigh commented: “I think that obviously the necessary change to avoid cataclysmic climate crisis is not going to be found at any working groups, it goes much further in terms of the nature of the capitalist system.”

He continued: “100 companies in the world contribute to 71 per cent of green house gases.

“Unless we do something about them, we are not going to deal with this crisis.”

Suggesting that the Council will probably continue with “business as usual” in terms of planning policies and “building houses with no notion of what’s going to happen,” Councillor O’Cofaigh added: “We are going to need very extreme measures.”

Welcoming the motion and its “wider focus,” Ulster Unionist Councillor Howard Thornton commented that the climate crisis is “largely due to green house emissions as a result of human activity” adding that it will be “at mankind’s peril if we ignore that.”

Councillor Thornton added: “I believe that this generation has a moral obligation to protect the environment in order to safely pass it on to the next.”

Independent Councillor Josephine Deehan commended councillors Gannon and Coyle for putting forward the motion.

She said: “It is indeed very timely that this motion should come before the Council this evening at this time given that in recent days and weeks we have been seeing some of the worst excesses of climate change in terms of the heatwave which has affected Europe and indeed today we were warned that unless this whole issue of climate change is addressed urgently, that we can expect to see in Europe, in our neck of the woods, soaring temperatures which makes life difficult for everyone.”

Councillor Deehan added: “We have a very short period of time to save our planet.

“I think the onus falls on each and every one of us to do our part in mitigating climate change.”

Democratic Unionist Councillor Paul Robinson and Independent Councillor Emmet McAleer both showed support for the motion, with Councillor McAleer commenting that it is “very important that the Council is getting behind this.”

Supporting the motion, Alliance Councillor Stephen Donnelly said: “I think this is very timely given this is a very time sensitive issue.”

He added: “We are facing one of the biggest challenges of our lifetimes.”

Councillor Donnelly also referenced the Youth Strike 4 Climate Justice protests, some of which have taken place locally in Enniskillen and have been covered in this newspaper.

He said: “It is quite clear that it is an issue that has young people mobilised right across the country.”

Sinn Féin Councillor Chris McCaffrey supported the motion commenting that it is “good to see action being taken by this Council” as this is the “greatest challenge we are going to face in the next 20/30 years.”