Mr. Eoghan Duffy:

I thank Ms Begley for raising that point. The simple answer is "Yes". The climate and biodiversity challenges are fundamental for the island. The Government in the South and the Executive in the North will be pursuing the major policy and investment needs that arise in this context. There is a recognition that there is a need and a scope to do that effectively and to do it together, if it is to be done in the ways it needs to be done and with the urgency required.

On 28 October, NESC published a substantive piece of research, based on extensive consultation with stakeholders North and South, that maps out where there are channels and routes to do more and to bring the two jurisdictions together on climate and biodiversity. With the benefit of that work, which was well under way, the NDP put a focus on a shared island basis on working on sustainability issues. It is quite specific in what it has identified as offering potential in the more immediate term and the medium term. Some of the specific investment priorities that were agreed on a cross-departmental basis are now in the plan. I will give the committee a sense of those priorities. They include investing in a co-ordinated roll-out of electric vehicle charging networks, focusing on exploring the potential for renewable energy and investing in renewable energy capacity on an all-island basis. There us a strong view that introducing and developing a circular economy can proceed in a much more effective way if it is done on an all-island basis where we would get the scale needed for the investment required. Similarly, there is already some good work under way on the all-island biodiversity plan. There is a commitment from the Government to invest more in all-island biodiversity initiatives and in cross-Border peatlands as biodiversity ecosystems in their own right and as carbon sinks. These are the kinds of areas in which our system has the benefit of the NESC research and the stakeholder engagement we have had so far. The Government is now setting those areas as places in which to invest. There is co-operation with the Executive alongside this. That is a very wide-ranging piece of work within a huge system and a society-wide exercise in climate and biodiversity. It is very important to do it in an efficient and joined-up way because doing it back to back will not be anywhere near as effective. That is very strong focus.