Climate bill step closer to passing

One of Northern Ireland’s two competing climate change bills has passed another Assembly hurdle and will now move to its final Stormont stage.
Watch more of our videos on Shots! 
and live on Freeview channel 276
Visit Shots! now

The Climate Change (No2) Bill, which is proposed by Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots, passed its further consideration stage in the Assembly yesterday.

An alternative climate bill proposed by Green Party NI leader Clare Bailey is also going through the Assembly stages, but is not as far advanced as Mr Poots’.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Northern Ireland is currently the only part of the UK and Ireland without its own dedicated legislation to tackle climate change.

People from the Northern Ireland farming Community gather outside Stormont ahead of a debate on NI Minister for Agriculture Edwin Poots' Climate Change Bill.People from the Northern Ireland farming Community gather outside Stormont ahead of a debate on NI Minister for Agriculture Edwin Poots' Climate Change Bill.
People from the Northern Ireland farming Community gather outside Stormont ahead of a debate on NI Minister for Agriculture Edwin Poots' Climate Change Bill.

MLAs resumed and completed voting on a variety of amendments to Mr Poots’ bill yesterday in a debate that originally started on Monday.

Prior to the further consideration stage, Mr Poots’ bill had already been significantly amended by MLAs in February, with his preferred target of an 82% reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2050 increased to net zero emissions by the same date.

The DUP minister has warned that that revised target could have devastating consequences for Northern Ireland’s farming community.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Ms Bailey’s bill proposed an even more ambitious target of net zero by 2045.

On Monday, Mr Poots tabled a number of amendments to his bill in the Assembly that sought to minimise its effect on the agriculture sector.

The Assembly backed his amendment proposing that the overall net zero target should incorporate a different target for methane gas of 46% reduction by 2050.

However, MLAs rejected another amendment which had proposed that greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture sources should not be included when measuring Northern Ireland’s progress in reducing emissions.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Yesterday, an amendment tabled by Mr Poots inserting a requirement for regulations to establish a scheme to administer a “Just Transition Fund for Agriculture” was among those passed.

A series of Sinn Fein tabled amendments were also passed. Those included the insertion of a line recognising that the “island of Ireland is a single biogeographic unit”.

At the outset of the debate on Monday, Mr Poots said the consequences of war in Ukraine must be factored into planned climate change laws for Northern Ireland.

He stressed the importance of Northern Ireland protecting its domestic food production industry as he warned of the potentially huge global ramifications of the conflict.

l See Farming Life & Morning View, page 18