John Gibbons - An Taisce

Climate change presents the greatest threat to Irish agriculture and our wider society in the coming decades that we have faced at any time since independence. However, the reaction to date from the IFA and, by extension, the Department of Agriculture and An Taoiseach himself, is to treat the prospect of climate-related regulation as what farmers need to worry about most.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) represents the last word in expert scientific and policy guidance in this area, and its warnings are unequivocal: “Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems”. The key phrase above is “irreversible”.

The notion of Ireland “feeding the world” with steaks and milk powder as some contributor to global food security is fanciful and self-serving. The future of agriculture is far more likely to depend on genuinely sustainable, far more local and, increasingly, organic and small-scale operations. The recent UK Chatham House report pointed out that livestock farming is a far bigger contributor to global emissions than every car, train, ship and aircraft in the world – combined.

Seán Kelly MEP - a member of the European Parliament’s negotiating team at COP 21

Europe should lead the world in climate ambition as we are best placed to do so. Without a global and binding agreement, Europe risks losing key sectors to other parts of the world and this includes sustainable agricultural processes.

A legally binding agreement would not only combat climate change but would also prevent the possible closure of energy-intensive industries in Europe. Ireland’s grass-based system is extremely well suited to sustainable farming. It is important that agricultural production is retained in the parts of the world in which it is sustainable.

It would be extremely short-sighted of us to allow a situation occur in which EU emission restrictions are not matched by the rest of the world as this would lead to carbon leakage to other less efficient production systems and, in fact, lead to increased levels of emissions globally, while losing jobs in Europe.

We must achieve a balance between food security and climate change objectives. Agriculture, livestock and land-use sectors will play their part in the transition to a safe, sustainable, low-carbon future, but we must acknowledge the limited mitigation potential in the sector. Ireland is a model of efficient agriculture.

Harold Kingston – IFA environment chairman

Agriculture has never had a focus in a COP before now. The situation was always focused on “how do we deal with agriculture?” rather than trying to find a solution. What has impressed me most is that the focus is on working towards seeing agriculture as a solution rather than a challenge. This was something put forward by Turkey on Tuesday. There was a big focus on restoring carbon in the soil but Ireland already has a high carbon content in the soil.

The other big issue discussed has been food waste. The conference was told that the globe wastes 1.3bn tonnes of food between farm and fork. This equates to four giga tonnes of carbon dioxide. There are simple ways of cutting down on this through best-before dates and protecting food in transport to extend the expiry date of foods. These are practical solutions.

We have to act early on this. There is a recognition that global food demand is going up and that global food demand for what we (Ireland) produce is going up. It makes sense that we produce grass-based food.

There has been talk by NGOs about replacing the beef herd with forestry. There is a place for forestry, but it isn’t to replace beef. The NGOs who are pushing this agenda are either misinformed or are misinforming.