Committee on Climate Change

Northern Ireland’s current approach to reducing emissions is the target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% on 1990 levels by 2025.

In November 2009 the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Environment Committee reported on its inquiry into climate change. The inquiry remit was to understand the implications of climate change for Northern Ireland and to make recommendations on government policies, to mitigate the impacts of climate change, examine economic implications and identify suitable adaptation initiatives.
The Assembly Committee’s report agreed that Northern Ireland should make a fair and proportionate contribution to UK greenhouse gas emission targets and develop an implementation strategy to address both mitigation and adaptation.

In May 2010, the Northern Ireland Executive agreed to a proposal by the Minister of the Environment to establish a cross departmental working group on greenhouse gas emissions. The Executive’s Greenhouse Gas Action Plan was agreed and published in February 2011, outlining how each department in the Executive will contribute towards meeting the 2025 emission reduction target.