Fragile energy supplies is further reason why Stormont should avoid a climate target for Northern Ireland of zero emissions

Two climate change bills are winding their way through Stormont.

One is more advanced than the other, and yesterday moved towards its final stage.

This is the bill by Edwin Poots.

The agriculture minister has been a sensible voice in the debate over how to craft dedicated legislation for Northern Ireland to tackle climate change.

He had a preferred goal of an 82% reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2050. That date might sound a long time away but, as any middle aged person will understand, it is in fact not so distant.

It is as far into the future as 1994 is into the past — which is not very.

If NI slashes emissions by that extent in such a short time it will be highly commendable.

But this target was not good enough for MLAs, who seem to want to advertise themselves as virtuous.

Instead they amended the Poots bill so that it will have zero emissions by 2050, akin to the goal of another climate change bill (by Green Party NI’s Clare Bailey MLA). She has an even more brutal target date of 2045.

It is worrying, but not surprising, that assembly members have, in their clamour to be righteous, discarded the advice of Lord Debden, chair of the UK’s independent Committee on Climate Change, who has said that a zero goal is so unrealistic that it undermines the whole push for much lower emissions.

MLAs must rethink a bill that will cause such damage to farming here. They also need to think hard about the implications of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

It has shown the fragility of energy supplies.

Germany is now thinking of making a u-turn on its foolish plan to phase out nuclear power, the one form of energy that does not cause greenhouse emissions. That daft decision was making Germany dangerously reliant on gas, over which Russia has such influence.

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