THE SDLP’s Sinéad McLaughlin has called on the Department for the Economy to act with greater urgency to introduce financial incentives for consumers to decarbonise their homes and switch to lower carbon energy sources.
It follows the Economy Minister’s response to an Assembly Question indicating an intention to launch a pilot support scheme for lower carbon forms of heating in 2022/23.
Said the Foyle MLA: “The decarbonisation of household energy must be a key pillar of our approach to tackling the climate emergency.
“However, in order to successfully increase the use of clean energy, these sources must be sustainable and affordable to both consumers and businesses.
“Consumers cannot be expected to foot the bill of prohibitively high upfront costs of new technology.
“I remain extremely concerned that the Department for the Economy is not facing up to this reality and acting with enough urgency to introduce financial incentives for consumers to make the switch to more renewable forms of energy.
“The Minister should be putting his shoulder to the wheel and using every lever of government at his disposal to bring people together and form a consensus on how financial incentives can be introduced at pace to assist consumers to decarbonise their energy sources so that we can all play our party in tackling the climate crisis.
“I would therefore call on the Minister to introduce financial incentives without delay.
“It is long past time to finally treat this crisis with the urgency that it demands and support everyone in the North to make the necessary changes so that we can reach our net zero targets and assure the next generation of a cleaner, greener future.”
