Jersey at the British Irish Council Summit

02 June 2006

The eighth Summit meeting of the British-Irish Council took place in London on 2 June 2006. Jersey’s Chief Minister, Senator Frank Walker and Planning Minister Senator Freddie Cohen met Heads of Delegation and Environment Ministers from across the British-Irish Council region met to discuss the impacts of climate change.

The meeting, chaired by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, reviewed progress over the past year’s work of the Council before focusing on the critical issue of climate change and means of adapting to its unavoidable impacts on our environment.

Senator Walker explained to the group that Jersey had an excellent track record in reducing emissions of green house gases, due to the Island’s decision to switch from oil-fired electricity generation to importing nuclear/hydro-derived electricity. He also outlined the Council Of Ministers decisions to bring forward new policies for energy, transport and waste disposal, all of which will make significant differences to the emissions of green house gases.

Senator Cohen told the group that, while Jersey was a water-scarce island, and was twice as water-scarce as the driest region of England, Jersey had avoided the necessity to introduce drought measures now being seen in some areas of England. He said this was due to forward thinking in building a new reservoir at Queen’s Valley, and in maintaining a working desalination plant.

Senator Cohen also told the group that he intended to introduce a new Water Resources Law as soon as possible, which would strengthen the Island’s ability to cope with the problem of diminishing water supplies.

The Council agreed on a number of areas where members could usefully work together to examine the impacts of Climate Change and agreed to publish a paper on adapting to climate change in the British-Irish Council region.

The Summit also agreed to adopt a new priority work area for the BIC – Demography. Demographic changes have had a wide-ranging impact on the provision of services in all administrations and members will gain from exchanging information and sharing expertise.

The meeting was Chaired by the Right Honourable John Prescott MP, and attended by the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern, TD as well as Heads of Delegation and Environment Ministers from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey.

Note to Editors

The British-Irish Council (BIC) was established under the East-West or Strand Three element of the historic Good Friday Agreement which was concluded in 1998.
The mandate of the British-Irish Council is to promote the harmonious and mutually beneficial development of relations between the peoples of these islands.
The Members of the British-Irish Council are the Irish and British Governments, together with the devolved administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales and representatives from the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey. During suspension of the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive, the interests of Northern Ireland are represented in the Council by the British Government.
The official Communiqué of today’s meeting is available at: