Climate Crisis

Welcome back to the fifth episode of the Better Peace Podcast, presented by Clodagh and Olivia. Today we’re talking about a topic that affects everyone, young and old, rich and poor: the Climate Crisis. This issue is a very important to our generation, and we couldn’t pass up the chance to learn more about the crisis, how we can make a change and what our governments are doing to mitigate the crisis. 

First, Aaron and Nicole spoke to Darragh Graham, who works for Friends of the Earth Northern Ireland.  Darragh explains how climate change presents major injustice.

“Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos can just fly off into their colonies in space, but what about the rest of us?”

He explains how he became interested in working with Friends of the Earth and his motivation to pursue climate activism. Despite Darragh’s work to combat the climate crisis, he feels there is very little an individual can do to produce major changes; our culture of consumption props up the climate crisis, and no matter what changes an individual may make, it will never be enough. We need major change to be implemented from the top down, from governments and corporations who produce the harmful emissions that are causing the climate crisis. 

“The system is broken.”

“There is a false dichotomy in Northern Ireland of farming versus environmental issues… farming is the biggest industry producing greenhouse gases, but it doesn’t need to be that way and there are some for-profit farms in Northern Ireland that do farm sustainably.”

Darragh expressed his discontent over the shared ministry of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs in the NI Assembly. He goes on to explain how the concept of climate anxiety got him involved with Friends of the Earth, as he felt young people were being left with no acceptable means to deal with such anxieties. 

Next, Nicole and Aaron spoke to Andrew Muir, Minister for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs. Andrew explained his role as Minister and how his department takes action to deal with the climate crisis, among other environmental issues. 

One of the issues raised by the Minister was his work on the Lough Neagh Report and Action Plan, which recently received partial approval from the NI Executive. He also raised the prospect of an independent Environmental Protection Agency

The Minister disagreed that the Ministry of Environment should be separate from that of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. 

“I think it’s really fundamental that we end this idea that we pit the environment and agriculture against each other. They are not mutually exclusive, they go together… By having the two departments together, I can’t dodge the issues. I have to face up to the challenges around both matters and determine how we produce a sustainable future.”

The Minister is hopeful that cross-departmental approaches to combat the climate crisis will produce meaningful and sustainable change.


A huge thank you to Jude Hill (Mitchell) and Alan Meban for the production and editing of the Podcast. Another massive thanks to Aoibha Mallon for the amazing podcast soundtrack and finally to our funders. Project supported by the International Fund for Ireland (Our Peace, Our Future fund) and the National Lottery Community Fund NI (Empowering Young People programme).