Ulster Unionist MLA, Michael Copeland, has called upon the Departments at Stormont to ensure that they begin to take into account the inevitable changes that are going to occur in the weather patterns over the coming years. The East Belfast Assembly member Michael was speaking after meeting Alex Hill - the Chief Advisor for the Met Office in Scotland and Northern Ireland – at Stormont, following warnings that Mr Copeland had expressed in the Assembly regarding the number of elderly people who may lose their lives this winter due to cold weather.

Michael Copeland said;

“Last winter was the most severe faced by Northern Ireland, we were faced with prolonged snowfall and low temperatures and the month of December the coldest on record for over 100 years. Unfortunately almost one thousand people lost their lives in circumstances related to the cold weather, and when you consider that Northern Ireland has more winter deaths than places like Sweden or Germany, where it’s often much colder, it’s nothing short of a scandal. The Stormont Executive already stands accused of failing to tackle the crisis of fuel poverty as little or nothing of any substance seems to have been done between this year and last to make me think that it won’t suddenly become a major issue again when the weather delivers another cold spell.  

 Not only does the Executive need to recognise the problem of fuel poverty, it also needs to realise now that predicted changes in the climate over the next 50 years are going to have a huge impact on decisions that are being taken today. There is a fine line between the ability to mitigate and the ability to only adapt to an increase in global temperatures, and it is becoming increasingly likely that the global temperature will now rise by over 2 degrees Celsius no matter how good our efforts to reduce greenhouse gases.

 Northern Ireland and the Executive won’t be immune to these climatic changes, decisions being taken today on issues such as planning policies on areas prone to flooding, or even specific decisions such as the width of storm drains, may all need to be reviewed in the not so distant future.

Past observations of the weather provide us with the best resource for understanding natural climate variability, however there are still more sophisticated modelling approaches required to accurately predict future patterns. I was pleased to learn that the development of new models are already in progress at the Met Office, now the Northern Ireland Executive must prove that it will take into consideration the increasingly accurate climatic predictions in an effort to make informed decisions.”