{"id":3494375,"date":"2022-03-10T11:11:36","date_gmt":"2022-03-10T10:11:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.globalfactor.com\/berlin-to-unleash-e200-billion-for-climate-protection-until-2026-copy\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T11:49:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T10:49:10","slug":"climate-change-new-law-in-northern-ireland-aims-for-net-zero-by-2050","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.globalfactor.com\/en\/climate-change-new-law-in-northern-ireland-aims-for-net-zero-by-2050\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate change: New law in Northern Ireland aims for net zero by 2050"},"content":{"rendered":"

Northern Ireland will soon have its first laws to tackle climate change after MLAs at Stormont passed new, specific legislation.<\/p>\n

Agriculture and Environment Minister Edwin Poots had brought the bill. It will include a target for net zero emissions by 2050 and the appointment of a climate change commissioner.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Stormont Assembly had been in an unusual position that two pieces of legislation on the same issue were going through the legislative process. But a separate, more ambitious climate change bill from Green leader Clare Bailey will now not proceed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ms Bailey said that as her party and others had amended Mr Poots’ bill to make it “stronger than previously proposed”, she would not continue to push her bill.<\/p>\n

“This has been a democratically developed bill and now is the time we ensure its delivery,” she added.<\/p>\n

Northern Ireland has been the only part of the UK without climate legislation.<\/p>\n

Mr Poots had originally proposed an 82% reduction in emissions by 2050.<\/p>\n

But in February the assembly voted to amend that to a net zero target by the same date, saying it would bring Northern Ireland in line with other parts of the UK.<\/p>\n

The bill also now includes legal provision for Just Transition – support for sectors to adjust without being unduly penalised.<\/p>\n

And the required reduction in methane, a potent greenhouse gas mostly produced by agriculture, will be limited to 46% under the new laws, following an amendment brought by Mr Poots during an earlier stage of debate.<\/p>\n

There had previously been criticism that Northern Ireland had lagged behind Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland on tackling climate change.<\/p>\n

The collapse of the Stormont assembly for three years between 2017 and 2020 meant legislation could not proceed.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Mr Poots hit back at accusations from other parties that he had delayed acting on the issue since becoming agriculture and environment minister in 2020.<\/p>\n

“I am pleased my climate change bill has got to this stage… some said I could not or would not bring this forward but it’s clear, as I stand here today, those accusations were unfounded,” he said.<\/p>\n

He argued that Ms Bailey’s original bill and some of her proposals were badly drafted and economically damaging.<\/p>\n

But Ms Bailey said the assembly needed to play its part in tackling climate change with the “building blocks” which have now been provided.<\/p>\n

“It’s a good news day and I am delighted that we have something which we can build on now,” she said.<\/p>\n

She added that the bill, which has now been passed, is not much different from the private members bill she had proposed.<\/p>\n

“During the consideration stage, the ministers bill was significantly amended to almost mirror the private members bill,” she said.<\/p>\n

“There was little point in pushing two nearly identical bills through given the time pressure we were under.<\/p>\n

“But we have what we have, which is the foundations and building blocks on which we build.”<\/p>\n

\n

Source:<\/b> BBC<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Climate Change News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3494386,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3494375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalfactor.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3494375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalfactor.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalfactor.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalfactor.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalfactor.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3494375"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalfactor.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3494375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3494388,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalfactor.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3494375\/revisions\/3494388"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalfactor.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3494386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalfactor.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3494375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalfactor.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3494375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalfactor.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3494375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}