We welcome the opportunity to contribute to the Draft Kildare County Development Plan.
There are many areas in the plan that are commendable but we feel it is unambitious and falls far short of any meaningful actions that address the most important issues facing us now and for all time – namely the Climate crisis and the Biodiversity crisis. We feel it would be welcomed and reflected in other counties if Kildare took the opportunity to take a completely different approach. At minimum all those involved in the planning process should at least be well educated on all aspects of the IPCC Climate and Biodiversity reports and scientific and academic views on the future. Plans should always be informed as far as possible by analysis of the future. We suggest that the plan is critiqued by experts in geopolitical and system stability risk analysis and that KCC employ such risk analysts to carry out risk analysis for the county.
We reference the work of Prof.Jem Bendell as a starting point to explore other viewpoints. of https://jembendell.com/2022/05/24/what-has-the-un-disaster-risk-reduction-agency-got-to-do-with-you/?fbclid=IwAR2x7Znhh_Km5h8wQrfKrld3OFwouj8K2dyBVm-tlTZZHxIY-KdeoyTRGOs
We have the opportunity to take action now, build resilience, and have perhaps some degree of control over the outcomes; or live with the future consequences of our inaction today.
It is vital that we all stop pretending that we can grow economies, reduce poverty and avert environmental disasters. Once we drop the myth that economic expansion is always helpful, a variety of ideas can come into view for either reducing or coping better with social and environmental problems. We are not hopeful that Kildare Development Plan will be brave enough to acknowledge the science of our situation and recognise that “it is impossible to decouple resource consumption and pollution from economic growth sufficiently to reduce risks of catastrophic damage to all societies from environmental changes over the coming years. The UN’s own research shows we don’t have the materials to electrify everything worldwide, so the implication is richer countries, and richer individuals in particular, must reduce their consumption levels”. We suggest that KCC planners become familiar with work of ( to give a couple of examples ) Deep Adaptation, The Degrowth Movement —" including 2019 Economic Nobel Prize winners Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo — recognize that the climate crisis is an impending threat to humanity, and that unchecked economic growth is not helping. Just the opposite, in fact. In our current system, natural resources are being rapidly depleted while social disparities worsen. Degrowth insists that capitalism and environmental justice cannot exist within the same social framework.”
In the previous consultation we asked that references to economic growth
For all our sakes I hope that is not too late and that the Council can be persuaded to be more ambitious
We are part of the Kildare Climate Linkage Group and support their submission which is very comprehensive in many areas. We would like you to consider that in addition to the points above that we have made the same points as in the CALG submission.
We request that due to the amount of work undertaken by knowledgeable volunteers on the CALG submission that KCC replies specifically to every suggestion made by them.
General comments
THE CDP was too long, repetitive, difficult to navigate,
In particular relation to biodiversity and in summary I would like to make the following points:
1.We need more ecological expertise in Kildare Co Co
2.The international IUCN definition of biodiversity needs to be used and clearly distinguished from 'green infrastructure'.
3.The Biodiversity crisis needs to be acknowledged and addressed in the Plan
4.Meaningful Biodiversity actions need to be informed and implemented across relevant areas in all chapters
5.The Strategic Vision and Overall aim of the Plan need to be revised to acknowledge and address the biodiversity crisis in Kildare
I include below our submission made on the first draft and note that most of our suggestions were not included in the second draft – we therefore put them forward again.
Submission on first Draft of CDP
Kilcock 4 Climate Action has contributed to the submission made by the Kildare Climate Action Linkage Group. Rather than including again here all the items in that submission we would refer you to that detailed submission and would like to note that we are in agreement with all the points made in that submission.
Given that our very existence as humans on this planet is threatened by the combined forces of
climate change and biodiversity loss, we argue that these two themes should be central to the
Kildare County Development Plan rather than being secondary to any development/economic
objectives.
We would like to see the County Development Plan structured with overall goals, specific realistic
measurable targets with key performance indicators. It should be broken down into specific steps
with target dates.
We believe the plan should include much longer-term goals as, if these are not identified now and
work started on them they will never be achieved.
We would like to see a reporting structure set up by KCC to communicate progress on these targets.
We would also like to see in the plan discussion on the targets being aimed for.
We would like to see more detailed feedback to community groups regarding unsuccessful funding
applications in order to facilitate greater success in future funding applications.
We would like to see Council liaise with local Climate Action and Sustainability groups, and make funding available to them directly.
We would like to see Council help facilitate the set up of Climate Action and sustainability groups in every town.
Consider how ordinary citizens can be encouraged to volunteer. Currently it is the same people always doing all the work and there is grave danger of burnout. We need everyone to be involved.
We would like to see Kildare County Council and Councillors lobby Government to treat this emergency that has been declared as an actual emergency.
The Council has a role in delivering the message to the county, using the right language and making knowledge and action mainstream.
To use an analogy from war – no-one ever said in World War 1 or 2 “ how do we make people take this emergency seriously?” The Climate and biodiversity emergencies are a much greater threat to our existence on this planet than any wars. We are using the wrong language to communicate the issues. Leaders in World War times never worried whether they might frighten people, or annoy businesses. They made hard choices and they acted as leaders.
Specifically in Kilcock a few of the things we would like:
- Council to make available land for allotments
- Council to help and support develop a local food market
- To see Council encourage local food producers, regenerative farming etc.
- Council to provide land or facilitate land for a Community Supported Agriculture farm
- The Local Area Plan to be implemented
- The new local area plan to have specific actions, dates, and regular reporting on achievement
- Increase permeability of our existing estates
- Impose conditions on local enterprises e.g. Musgraves to a)install solar panels on their roofs, or instal green rooves, b)take radical measures to reduce packaging and single use items, c) implement a plan to have bulk buy/zero waste as a norm for many items in supermarkets d) liaise more with local groups to provide support.
- All council managed estates to be required to instal community composting
- Liaise more with all residents associations – make payment of grass cutting grant conditional on implementing specific measures to promote biodiversity recovery
- Encourage residents associations to actively communicate with residents. Consider how residents can be encouraged to become involved.
- Liaise with schools and provide grant funding for schools to carry out projects. For example a transition year project could look at a food waste project:
- Carry out audit to see where and what food waste occurs in the town / area
- Analyse food waste and identify projects to minimise
- Work with all restaurants in the town to get them to separate food waste for composting
- Carry out audit of other waste produced in area – analyse and identify any re-use, recycling opportunities
- Encourage businesses to implement biodiversity plans for their premises and land. Consider an appropriate rates reduction, maybe graded for those making the most efforts, or rates increases for those not making any efforts.
There are many more ideas Kilcock 4 Climate Action has to help with Climate Action and Biodiversity Recovery, but due to time pressure these cannot all be included here but we welcome the opportunity to be involved in further consultations and discussions.