Councillors refuse to approve Westmeath climate action plan

A climate action plan failed to gain the approval of members of Westmeath County Council at a meeting on Monday. The councillors feared that the plan would impact negatively on farmers who, they claimed, are already struggling to survive and are being wrongly blamed for a lot of our carbon footprint.

Before the meeting about 30 farmers protested outside the council buildings where four large tractors were parked. Some of the councillors met with a delegation from the IFA who had staged the protest. The delegation outlined the problems facing farmers and asked the councillors to do their utmost to seek a fundamental reset of how farm policy is devised and implemented in the EU and in Ireland.

Barry Kehoe, acting chief executive, said there was no mention of agriculture in the proposed climate action plan. He warned that the council had to adopt a strategy. The members could make whatever amendments they wished to the plan, but they had to adopt a strategy and be seen to be doing their part in the challenge of climate change and biodiversity, he said.

Westmeath County Council Draft Climate Action Plan 2024-2029 has been prepared to facilitate the transition of Westmeath to a low carbon and climate resilient county. The plan aims to deliver and promote best practice in climate action at local level. This aim is aligned to the Government’s overall National Climate Objective, which seeks to pursue and achieve, by no later than the end of 2050, the transition to a climate resilient, biodiversity rich, environmentally sustainable and climate neutral economy.

Having discussed the plan, the members agreed that each grouping would consider it and make amendments which will then be considered by the Environment Strategic Policy Committee and subsequently brought back to the full council. Deirdre Reilly, senior executive, said the council needed to adopt a climate action plan by mid-March.

“If it takes a special meeting, so be it. I am not going to fast track it just to meet a deadline”, the chairman Liam McDaniel declared.

The public consultation process on the draft climate action plan for Westmeath was open from early November to December 18. The draft plan outlined an expected increase in local flooding, and a rise in average temperatures in Westmeath by 1.5 degrees Celsius, in a worst case scenario, by 2050.

Summer rainfall is expected to decrease by up to 11 or 12% in the coming decades, according to the assessments, but the frequency of "heavy rainfall days" is expected to increase by up to 62% in some areas of Westmeath.