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MLAs to consider two NI climate bills
NI faces the prospect of two competing climate change bills going through the Stormont Assembly after a DAERA bill brought forward by Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots received Executive approval last Thursday.
It will be introduced to the Assembly before the summer recess, although the timelines to get it into law by the end of the current mandate in March 2022 look tight.
The DAERA bill includes a 2050 target for NI to cut carbon emissions by 82% when compared to 1990 levels, as part of NI’s contribution for the UK to be net zero by that date. That target is based on expert advice from the UK Climate Change Committee (CCC).
However, the private member’s climate change bill brought forward by Green Party leader Clare Bailey, which includes a more ambitious target for NI to be net zero by 2045, is further down the road towards being introduced as legislation.
It has the support of other Executive parties outside of the DUP and has already been debated at the Assembly. The bill is currently being considered by the Stormont Agriculture committee, which is effectively the third step in a six-step process, before a bill would receive royal ascent.
But that does not mean it takes precedence over the DAERA bill, or conversely, that a newer bill supersedes the older version.
Giving evidence to the Agriculture committee at the start of June, Colin Breen, the senior DAERA official leading on climate change legislation, described it as a “massively complex situation”. He said that, depending on what amendments are made by MLAs, there are potentially elements of both bills that could be enacted.
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