DEAR SIR: The efforts of COP26 to solve the issue of our climate crisis have turned into a massive talking shop of too many speakers with different agendas.

None of this is making much sense to Irish farmers who are now in the spotlight of the blame game.

On Saturday’s RTÉ Countrywide presented by Damien O’Reilly, Prof Myles Allen of Oxford and Dr Fionnuala Murphy UCD discussed the topic of methane and the international pledge to reduce methane production by 30% and how Irish farmers can meet this 30% pledge in the future.

At the moment, methane levels globally are rising, reducing current methane levels with the 30% pledge will give us one-tenth of a degree towards the magic 1.5°C target.

Myles stated that if the fossil fuel industry was to fix all the methane/gas leaks around the world, we would largely be able to deliver the 30% pledge.

Fionnuala’s groundbreaking work at UCD on reducing methane from ruminants through dietary research, along with alternative energy production on farms, will form an integral part of Irish agriculture’s future goals.

But the real elephant in the room is the fossil fuel industry which to a large part is avoiding the brunt of international political pressure.

While the discussions and blaming are going on in Glasgow, where are the pledges from the fossil fuel industry? The silence from the oil and coal industry is profound in comparison to the loud concerns being voiced at COP26.

Saudi Arabia has pledged net zero by 2060 but no plan to exit oil. Until the fossil fuel industry is made responsible for the carbon it produces, we are going nowhere. I am not saying that we as farmers are blameless but we as an industry deserve to see equity with responsibility.