Our transport and energy sectors are on a collision course with agriculture – this is the only conclusion that can be drawn from the recently published carbon budget, the latest Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assessment of emissions trends and comments by the association’s head, Laura Burke.

While the focus has been on percentage cuts, the brutal fact is that total amounts of emissions in the form of tonnes of carbon equivalents is what matters.

For agriculture, that cut by 2030 is from 23m tonnes to 17.25m tonnes by 2030. For transport, it’s 12m tonnes down to 6m tonnes and for energy, it’s down from 10m tonnes to 3m tonnes.

However, that’s not the first problem we will face – there is also a budget set to 2025, only three years from now. By then, agriculture needs to reach 20m tonnes, transport 10m tonnes and energy 4m tonnes.

For context, by 2025 to avoid a herd cull, every single farmer would have to adopt every measure laid out in the Teagasc Marginal Abatement Cost Curve (MACC) to reach this.

This would include replacing nearly all CAN fertiliser with protected urea and significant genetic gain in both beef and dairy herds, likely requiring 100% AI-only breeding, all in the next two years.

Energy and transport emissions

The issue is that both energy and transport are now moving in the wrong direction. The most obvious and beyond our control is energy; more coal and oil burning due to high gas prices has increased the amount of carbon released daily from our electricity generation. Without sharp energy reductions, this will only increase, although these will no doubt be politically unpopular.

Calls for reopening peat burning plants would not solve these issues, as it would only increase energy emissions, nor would approving new gas terminals that likely won’t be built until well after 2025.

Investing in solar rooftops or farms would help, as would actually harvesting the vast wind potential off our coasts, but neither will likely be effective in this time period.

Transport is another matter, as the majority of these emissions are from private car journeys.

Often the product of personal choice, especially where viable public transport exists, these emissions are jumping faster than any other sector. Roads have returned to their clogged state, rising by 6.1% in 2021.

Do more cows mean less cows?

If a similar rise is seen this year, transport emissions will rise to 11.56m tonnes. The M50 resembles a parking lot at peak times, in direct defiance of the ‘new normal’ predictions of more remote work. Scepticism of reaching the target for electric vehicles (EVs) looks well founded.

Although people are rapidly adopting them due to high diesel prices, the supply of electric cars is limited by COVID-19 related shortages in production.

The target of one million electric vehicles on the road by 2030, and 195,000 by 2025, would require selling double all the electric cars currently in Ireland each year between 2022 and 2030.

After the political wrangling and brutal public discussion around agriculture, farmers may have breathed a sigh of relief that at least a target had been set.

That now looks premature. Addressing the Citizen’s Assembly on Biodiversity, head of the EPA Laura Burke spelled it out in typical frank fashion – the current Climate Action Plan simply does not add up to the 51% cut mandated by law, and the actions planned will only cut emissions by 28%.

Not good for agriculture

Some may believe the idea that other sectors’ failure to reach their targets will give farming some leeway. After all, being late to class when no one else gets there for another hour isn’t that bad.

This is an extremely foolish and even dangerous view. Instead, it looks more like we will be forced to do others homework as punishment.

A Government facing its own self-imposed legally binding commitment will not simply allow itself to be open to legal action. Groups likely to bring such action have been perfecting their arguments already, with dry runs such as Belview and the Climate Case.

Nor are any financially sensible politicians likely to harm their golden geese in foreign direct investment when they contribute so much in tax. Instead, it will be well and truly agriculture’s head on the block.

Farming needs to wake up to the reality – it’s fossil fuels or us. Every new power plant switching from gas to coal or oil will mean the targets get steeper for agriculture. Every new road leading to more car emissions will mean more cows targeted for culling. This is simply an unavoidable political and legal reality. Will any of those who champion farming interests, rural politician or farm leader alike, be brave enough to say that?