Stromness turned on the perfect summer’s day – blue skies and an unseasonably warm mid 20s temperature. We decide to hold our breakfast meeting sitting in the cockpit of Novara.

Aisling arrived with six fresh eggs, as well as salad greens and herbs from her garden on Hoy. Aisling Phillips is the Community Development Officer (CDO) for Hoy and Walls, for the Carbon Neutral Islands (CNI) project.

The Scottish Government announced the Carbon Neutral Islands project in May 2022 as part of its strategy to meet the statutory target of reaching net zero carbon emmissions by 2045. The CNI project supports six islands, Barra & Vatersay, Cumbrae, Hoy & Walls, Islay, Raasay and Yell to adapt to climate change, as well as support their decarbonisation efforts. The CNI projects act as examples of what can be done in other parts of Scotland and further afield.

On this glorious summer’s morning, Nick Blyth (Climate Change, Orkney Islands Council) and Craig Dibb, (Project Development Coordinator, Islands Centre for Net Zero with the European Marine Energy Centre) join us in the cockpit.

Our conversation starts, as they usually do, with a comment on the weather – how hot it is. Aisling notices that Spring and Autumn seem to have disappeared and weather now seems to go from Summer to Winter with the shoulder seasons hardly occurring. She’s lived all her life on Hoy, her home has been in the family for five generations and the weather has always dictated what happens – whether she gets to school, or not; whether food arrives, whether their produce leaves. We found we had much in common, mostly a self-reliance built from growing up in a small community a long way from a shop!

Her observations about the weather echoed what we’d heard in Shetland; wetter and windier winters, drier and hotter summers. Some examples of what this means on Hoy are more disruptions to transport, fewer navigable days for ferries and freight, loss of biodiversity and increased storms and flooding.

Aisling tells us the launch of the Hoy and Walls community Carbon Neutral Pathway was recently released – along with similar plans for all of the six Carbon Neutral Islands. It was her role on Hoy & Walls to engage with locals and develop the pathway. Although the plan outlined dozens of actions residents of Hoy & Walls want to take to change and adapt to the risks and opportunities climate change is presenting them, there are six actions that people identified as the highest priority.

1. Extend the Legacy project that aims to support Hoy & Walls residents to offset the premium rates paid for their electricity.
2. Support a community green transport scheme.
3. Improve the electric vehicle infrastructure.
4. Community garden.
5. Support the Orkney Islands Council improve recycling facilities, including a household collection service.
6. Home insulation and draught-proofing projects.

Hoy has a high level of awareness of the impacts of increased storm events and more severe flooding. Already several homes are regularly inundated when storms and high tides collide – and with rising sea levels, the incidences of this are only likely to increase. But facing the prospect of acting at this time is difficult; we’re talking about changing people’s homes and livelihoods which is tough enough, and that’s before any conversations about how to fund this.

Aisling spoke about the losses people are facing, which made me think that’s where Novara’s network of coaches could assist; coaches are experts in assisting people to face difficult decisions, make changes in their lives and empower a future that they want to see while being an independent ally in the journey to becoming climate safe.

Another example of climate action is that Hoy already has a community owned wind farm where the electricity is sold into the national grid and the profits are returned to the community. There are discussions around seeing the income from this resource more targeted at the fuel poverty many residents currently endure, which is reflected in the first target of the Carbon Neutral Pathway for the island.

On Hoy & Walls, the actions they’re taking means they’re well on their way to addressing the risks and opportunities climate changes will bring.