Climate Change and the Introduction of a Climate Change Act - 21 July 2020
Channel: Northern Ireland Assembly
Date: 21/07/2020

The motion read - That this Assembly acknowledges the ongoing climate and biodiversity emergency and calls by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for rapid decarbonisation; reiterates the Assembly’s declaration of a climate and biodiversity emergency, the Assembly’s demands for the urgent introduction of a Climate Change Act, the all-party New Decade, New Approach commitment to delivering a Climate Change Act, and the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs’ commitment to a Green Growth Strategy; recognises climate change as a human rights issue that risks deepening existing inequalities; further recognises the need for a stimulus-led, just and green recovery to restart economic activity following the economic disruption arising from COVID-19; calls on the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs to introduce a Climate Change Act with legally binding and ambitious sectoral emission-reduction targets, and to ensure that any economic recovery strategy is underpinned by rapid decarbonisation and a just transition to protect jobs through upskilling people in carbon intensive sectors; and further calls on the Minister to introduce this Act in the Assembly within three months.