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Farmers welcomed the constructive tone of the first Government-organised National Dialogue on Climate Action event on Saturday in Athlone, Co Westmeath.
“It’s a start,” said Joe Deverell from Tullamore, welcoming “balance” in the public discussions covering both agriculture’s position as Ireland’s leading source of greenhouse gases, and the importance of bringing farmers on board when tackling such emissions.
Maynooth University climate scientist Dr Conor Murphy said that although agriculture accounts for one-third of Ireland’s emissions, “there is no point in blaming one or the other. The solution is to act across all sectors.”
IFA environment chair Thomas Cooney manned an exhibition stand at the event to show “the good work that Irish farmers have been doing so far to reduce emissions”. He said that developing renewable energy and agroforestry would have a greater impact than a carbon tax on farmers.
“If we put a carbon tax to try and reduce our production here, all it’s going to do is have leakage from South American countries that are less carbon-efficient,” he said.
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At Monday’s EU Council of Environment Ministers, Minister Denis Naughten supported a French paper calling for “the ratification of the Paris Agreement and compliance with its legally binding obligations to be an essential component of ... trade agreements”.
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Minister Naughten told his EU counterparts that importing beef from outside the EU not only “undermines the livelihoods of farmers, but is also damaging our climate”. As a trade deal with Mercosur seems within reach, he said EU beef is four times more carbon efficient than Brazil’s and warned against a situation “where trade agreements lead to an overall increase in global emissions, by shutting down production in Europe and pushing up emissions in other parts of the world”.
The national climate dialogue opened as farming is under scrutiny for its rising greenhouse gas emissions. Environmental group An Taisce has called for a dairy “production cap” and criticised Minister Creed for making “repeated, inaccurate claims” by confusing dairy emissions with slower-growing figures for the overall agricultural sector. As previously reported, data from the Environmental Protection Agency shows that increasing milk production since the end of quotas has driven growth in agricultural emissions.
However, the minister stood over using figures for the whole industry and said we have more to do: “The difference is that as we are, along with New Zealand, the most carbon-efficient in the world per unit of milk produced. Progress is slow.”
Renewable schemes
Minister Naughten said he had delayed a support scheme for domestic rooftop solar announced for this summer so that it could include farmers at a later stage.
While still restricted to home consumption in its first phase, “we’re designing the scheme in such a way that it can be expanded, both in terms of output on to the grid, but also in terms of, for example, farmers putting it up on their sheds”, he told the Irish Farmers Journal.
He said he would present a different scheme for commercial-scale electricity, including solar panels on agricultural land, to cabinet in the coming days. He expects the separate support scheme for renewable heat to clear EU state aid rules and open in October. In the meantime, he plans to “allow for applications to come in and be processed pending the approval by the EU”.
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