Northern Ireland gets its first climate bill

Northern Ireland will soon get its first climate change bill. It includes a target for net-zero emissions by 2050, which means that they will be in line with the rest of the UK. The Green Party had put forward an alternative bill that would allow net-zero to be achieved five years earlier.

As this is an agricultural region, methane emissions from livestock have been central to the negotiations. An amendment proposed by the agriculture & environment minister removing agricultural emissions from being part of the net-zero target was rejected. Instead, they passed an amendment to limit the reduction of methane to 46% by 2050.

Source: BBC ,10 March 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-60670559