Lord Elliott says the recent court ruling halting the A5 road project shows the “difficulties of meeting the extremely high bar” of the climate change legislation – or for government departments to explain how they can meet such targets. Belfast High Court found that the decision to proceed with the major road upgrade was not compatible with the 2022 law – or the Executive's environmental and emissions reduction targets. The controversial legislation was passed by the Assembly despite a warning from the UK Climate Change Committee (CCC) that its “ambitious” aims risked damaging the credibility of net zero plans in the province. However, the Assembly pressed ahead with targets of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, with an interim target of at least a 48% reduction by 2030. There has been growing scepticism of the plans from unionist politicians in recent months – despite DUP and UUP support for the legislation in 2022. The law was brought by former agriculture minister Edwin Poots – with more ambitious targets than he had wanted passed after former Green Party leader Clare Bailey introduced rival legislation. Now, the Ulster Unionist peer Lord Tom Elliott has said MLAs should revisit the law – saying that while the principle is “broadly accepted” the “speed, direction and methods of getting there” is contested. The former chair of the Assembly’s environment committee has pointed to the Scottish government’s decision to remove interim climate change targets – something the Northern Ireland minister Andrew Muir is not considering. Lord Elliott said the Scottish government “seem to have realised that some of their targets have been too ambitious” and there was therefore “a need to change direction”. He told the News Letter: “When the CCC reported to the NI Executive in 2021 it recommended that any climate legislation for Northern Ireland include a target to reduce all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 82% by 2050 as part of a fair contribution to the UK Net Zero target in 2050 and our international obligations under the Paris Agreement. “However, this recommendation was rejected by those bringing forward the Northern Ireland Climate Change legislation who insisted on the reduction of 100%. “The legal challenge to the A5 has demonstrated the difficulties of meeting the extremely high bar of the climate change legislation, even for government departments to explain how they can meet such targets. “There is major concern that if other government projects, and indeed private enterprise developments were to be legally challenged they could fail the climate change legislation test. “Such action could have wide-ranging consequences for departments’ schemes and industry plans to improve our economy. “I often wonder if some people just don’t want Northern Ireland to produce anything, that would solve our local climate change issue, but would be hugely negative for climate change on the world stage as we would have to import all our goods, increasing the world carbon footprint and importing goods that may be of a quality that is not of as high standards, or indeed of as good welfare or environmental standards as those produced locally. “That would not be beneficial to either Northern Ireland, its citizens or for climate change in general. In the year that Northern Ireland passed the climate change legislation China permitted more coal power plants than any time in the previous seven years. “It was the equivalent of about two new coal power plants per week. The report by energy data organizations Global Energy Monitor and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air finds the country quadrupled the amount of new coal power approvals in 2022 compared to 2021. “Last year Northern Ireland imported £982.2 million of goods from China, the 2nd largest import market for Northern Ireland (9.9% of Northern Ireland imports) for goods in 2024. The Climate Action Tracker is an independent scientific project that tracks government climate action and measures, it rates China’s overall climate change rating as highly insufficient. However, we continue to import large amounts of goods from that Country. “While we need to continue a focus on climate change, given the advice provided by the experts in the UK Climate Change Committee, the potential significant negative consequences for government and private industry plans of the current legislation, there is surely value in doing what the Scottish government has done in reviewing the targets set in that 2022 legislation”.