Northern Ireland has "excellent opportunities" to support the wider roll out of electric vehicles, home energy efficiency measures, and renewable electricity, but existing policies will not be enough to meet recommended climate goals, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) has concluded in a new report.

Assessing the country's potential for emissions reduction, the UK's independent climate body recommended aiming for at least a 35 per cent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2030 against 1990 levels, in order to help towards the UK's overall climate targets. Four per cent of UK emissions came from Northern Ireland in 2016.

However, it said existing policies in the province - in part hampered by political uncertainty from Brexit negotiations and the lack of a sitting executive since March 2017 - currently only put Northern Ireland on course for a 32 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030.

The report highlighted EVs, home heating, renewable electricity, and agriculture as areas where Northern Ireland could deliver strong emissions cuts, but it also warned of limited progress to date in farming, peatland, tree planting, and energy efficiency.

Northern Ireland does not currently have any separate climate change legislation, but its greenhouse gases contribute to the UK's overall statutory target to reduce emissions by 80 per cent between 1990 and 2050.

In July 2018, NI's Department for Agriculture, Environment & Rural Affairs (DAERA) therefore requested advice from the CCC on possible policies and strategies that could deliver economy-wide emissions cuts of 35 per cent, 40 per cent, and 45 per cent against 1990 levels by 2030.

Publishing its advice on Friday, the CCC said there were "excellent opportunities for NI to deliver and go beyond a 35 per cent reduction in 2030". But it added that the delivery of necessary policies would require action across all sectors of the economy, a joined-up approach, and close working with the UK government.

On energy, the CCC emphasised Northern Ireland's policies "must enable and efficient, interconnected energy market to operate on both sides of the border" with the Republic of Ireland to help foster decarbonisation, while work should also focus on tackling the present "lack of a route to market" for low cost renewables, such as onshore wind.

And while the gas network is not as extensive as the rest of the UK's, leaving almost three quarters of homes heated by oil or electric sources, there is "considerable potential" for the widespread rollout of heat pumps to keep homes warm, CCC said.

The deployment of heat pumps should be bolstered by policy support to incentivise installation of low carbon heating and energy efficiency improvements, which the CCC said was presently lacking.

The province's relatively small geographical size should also put it in pole position for the rapid uptake of electric vehicles "because range anxiety may be less of a concern", although the report adds this is slightly offset by drivers frequently undertaking longer cross-border journeys and the current lack of public charging infrastructure in both NI and the Republic of Ireland.

The report also warns that agriculture remains a major climate challenge, noting that it is responsible for 30 per cent of NI's overall emissions, a higher proportion than the UK as a whole, where the figure is close to 10 per cent. NI's farming sector is also heavily livestock-based, leading to higher emissions.

"Agriculture will be more challenging to decarbonise in the next decade than most other sectors in our cost-effective path to the fifth carbon budget," it states.

Moreover, unlike the rest of the UK, land use and forestry is a source of emissions in Northern Ireland rather than a carbon sink, which also has a 40 per cent lower forest coverage compared to the rest of the UK. Tree planting falls "well short" of meeting the CCC's recommendations for the UK's fifth carbon budget, the report adds.

As such, the report highlights the proposed post-Brexit framework for farming subsidies across the UK as "an opportunity to more closely link financial support to agricultural emissions reduction and increased carbon sequestration, including afforestation".

Combining all of these measures in the most effective manner could push Northern Ireland's greenhouse gas reduction past 40 per cent by 2030, according to the CCC, although it will still "have to reduce emissions well beyond 45 per cent in the long-term".

"The cost-effective path to delivering emissions reductions in Northern Ireland requires emissions reductions in all sectors of the economy," the report concludes. "Reducing emissions across power, agriculture and LULUCF (land use, land change and forestry), buildings and industry, transport, and waste will require close co-ordination between the UK government and multiple government departments in Northern Ireland."