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LAST UPDATE | 20 Jul 2022
AGRICULTURE MINISTER CHARLIE McConalogue told Climate Minister Eamon Ryan that “impossible” targets for reducing emissions would undermine the sector’s “well-established green image”, according to a record held by the Department of Agriculture.
Minutes of a meeting between the two ministers on 21 June detail discussions about the emissions limits that will soon be given to specific sectors, including agriculture, ahead of their expected approval by Cabinet.
The Department of Agriculture released the document under Access to Information on the Environment (AIE) to Noteworthy, Journal Media’s investigative platform.
Minister Ryan outlined the “incredible challenge” for all sectors in setting caps on emissions that comply with the overall carbon budgets.
The government’s Climate Action Plan, published in November 2021, set out draft ranges for what level of reduction each sector could be expected to make by 2030 compared to 2018. For agriculture, that was 22% to 30%, bringing its emissions down to between 16 and 18 Mt.
At the June meeting, the Climate Minister said that all sectors would be required to reach their higher level of ambition and that for agriculture, that would require emissions to be cut to 16 Mt.
He highlighted “the importance of added value and diversification opportunities for farmers in terms of activity and income”, such as solar power or creating biomethane gas from anaerobic digestion.
However, Minister McConalogue said there would be “significant challenges” in reducing emissions by 22%, the minutes recorded.
He said that setting targets that were “impossible to achieve” would “undermine the credibility of the sector and its well-established green image”.
The minutes detail that he said reducing emissions below 18 Mt would require significant reductions in methane “going well beyond what is envisaged anywhere else in the world” and “enormous” displacement of animals, as well as economic and social impacts.
The ministers agreed to engage further on the issue, which is now before an Oireachtas Committee this afternoon.
IFA Deputy President Brian Rushe has previously said the lower 22% target would be “extremely challenging” but “achievable”.
The sectoral targets come as part of Ireland’s first-ever carbon budget, which chart a path for the country as a whole to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in three cycles up to 2035.
The first cycle, which lasts until 2025, allows for a total of 295 million tonnes (Mt) of emissions to be produced. For the second cycle, that falls to 200Mt between 2026 and 2030 and drops again to 151 Mt between 2031 and 2035 for the third and final one.
Ryan said at the weekend that he would put forward the sectoral breakdown for Cabinet approval in the coming weeks – “hopefully” by the end of July.
The Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture heard from experts this afternoon on the calculation of Ireland’s methane emissions.
Professor Barry McMullin and Paul Price of DCU said that annual mass emissions of methane in Ireland need to fall by about 50% by 2050 compared to 2018 to meet targets.
“The faster this reduction is achieved, the lower the risk of overshoot of the Irish contribution to global temperature rise.”
Professor Peter Thorne of Maynooth University added that “if we are to avoid the worst impacts of climate change and keep warming below 1.5 degrees, then globally we must rapidly reduce overall methane emissions whilst also cutting carbon dioxide emissions to net zero”.
A sticking point for agriculture’s impact on climate has been whether cattle numbers may need to be cut to reduce methane emissions.
Earlier today, Taoiseach Micheál Martin told RTÉ News there must be a “stabilisation of the herd”.
“That is important because there has been an exponential growth over the last decade or so. That has to be acknowledged,” he said.
“That said, we’ve got to balance the food security issue with the climate issue.”
Speaking to the committee this afternoon, Professor of Geosystem Science at the University of Oxford Myles Allen told the committee that there is “no question” that increasing the size of herds increases emissions, while the opposite is also true.
He said that Ireland’s emissions reporting should specifically include the impact of emissions on global temperatures and said that could help to alleviate tensions between the agriculture sector and the government.
Currently, there is “unnecessary animosity” between the sector and government, he said.
Dr Frank M Mitloehner, professor and air quality specialist in the Department of Animal Science at UC Davis in California, said that to cut methane emissions from livestock, reducing demand would be key.
Otherwise, cutting emissions in one area, such as by limiting cattle, would result in emissions moving from one place to another, he said.
Farmer and founder of the Carbon Removals Action Group John Hourigan said farmers should be allowed to account for gases that their activities remove from the atmosphere in calculations.
Department officials from the Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Environment also came before the committee to discuss the soon-to-be-implemented sectoral ceilings.
Edwina Love, Principal Officer at the Department of Agriculture, said that “to even achieve the reductions at the lower end of the target range over the decade will require a significant transformational change in the sector on a scale that has not been seen before for Irish agriculture”.
“Measures such as reducing and changing fertiliser type, earlier finishing age of our prime beef animals, increased organics will get us maybe 70% of the way there but further measures including the technological development of methane reducing feed additives and incentivising diversification opportunities for farmers such as growing grass for an expanding anaerobic digestion industry will be needed,” Love said.
“Unfortunately, an unhelpful narrative may have developed that a 5 Mt reduction in the sector is somehow ‘business is usual’, I wish to state for the public record that this is clearly not the case.”
Marc Kierans, Principal Officer at the Department of the Environment, outlined in his opening statement how the department prepared the sectoral emissions ceilings.
Sinn Féin TD Matt Carthy criticised the opening statement, saying it had provided no new information to the committee today.
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Amazing that we still have Ministers that will not fly economy but then they dictate to the working class that we are really very bad at doing Climate Change. What about the turf
@Maurice O Neill: working class? This is about farmers. Hardly the proletariat. You should study your Trotsky texts more carefully.
@Ciaran O’Mara: maybe you should study proletariat meanings.
@Ciaran O’Mara: Maurice is alt-right/right-wing, anyone can see that from his comments on here… Either that or he’s the troll a lot of people think he is.
@Urban Living Dublin: Send the climate bill to China. They didn’t seem to get the bill for covid yet so they deserve to pay double.
@Paul Cunningham: China’s emissions are set to peak in 2030, well ahead of schedule.
“Our analysis suggests that both of these goals will be significantly overachieved. We project that China will peak CO2 emissions in 2025 – or slightly after – at around 11.9GtCO2 excluding LULUCF. And we expect China to achieve a 67% reduction in carbon intensity below 2005 levels by 2030. Other researchers have also projected earlier peaking, at similar levels.”
“China’s renewables installation is booming. Its 2030 targets include non-fossil fuels reaching “around 25%” of primary energy consumption and increasing the installed wind and solar capacity to 1,200GW. Again, our assessment is that it will overachieve these targets.”
“Renewables capacity surpassed 1,000GW in 2021, a quadrupling of the 250GW it had in 2010. Wind and solar now exceed 300GW each and the CEC forecasts up to 150GW will be added this year alone.”
“Our projections show China is likely to overachieve both its renewables installation and non-fossil energy targets. We project solar and wind capacity will exceed a combined 850GW in 2025 and 1,500GW in 2030.”
What green image? Everyone knows that irish farmers are a law unto themselves and are primarily responsible for the destruction of the countryside.
@Dave Wave: What planet are You living on
Quality Farms Producing the Best Quality Food in the World
@Dave Wave: Ya wha?
@Dave Wave: No sorry, they certainly need to reduce cattle herd numbers but there’s no way I can agree that farmers are destroying the countryside. That’s just not true.
@Dave Wave: well said, they’ve no problem pulling out ditches and flattening old farm buildings. I’ve seen it myself in my own area and before people think I’m a D4 head I’m not I grew up in rural Ireland and most don’t really give a genuine dam.
@FiannaFáilness FineGaelness: the talk of reducing the national herd needs to be looked at very carefully. The amount of methane produced by that sector has be used as a stick that goes unchallenged in the face of a global shortage of food. Milk powder production will be essential given the situation in Africa due to the Ukrainian war. Is there not a case to look at increasing the National herd?
When are they going to tackle the cheap flights and highly polluting airlines?
@Marc Spark: They fly business class
@Marc Spark: The global aviation industry produces around 2.1% of all human-induced carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Agricultural production and forestry accounts for c. 25%.
@Marc Spark: When are you going to give up your precious (environment wrecking) technologies and internet? See, silly reductive arguments like yours gets people nowhere.
@Maurice O Neill: That’s the 2nd time you mention it – in your own typical nonsensical fashion, I must say.
Does the plane produce less pollution when you sit in economy instead to business class?
And why would they not fly business?
Unless you can proof otherwise, I doubt that they’re sitting there sipping champagne, but actually do some work.
And if they don’t, I won’t care either.
@FiannaFáilness FineGaelness: which goes towards feeding the population of the planet, which is still increasing I might add. Open flight 24 and see how many aircraft are in the air at any one time. Despite the advances in technology which have made engines more efficeint and less polluting, it is the sheer number of aircraft in use that is the issue, again to move an ever increasing population around. Just so you know I have mentioned what I do for a living on here many times, but I will repeat it: Aircraft Mechanic.
Why would reducing the herd be an “impossible target”?
@Urban Living Dublin: It’s not, “impossible target” just means they don’t want to do it. We produce far more beef/dairy than we need in this country. It’s clear that beef/dairy farming is where the cuts NEED to be made to meet our targets.
@FiannaFáilness FineGaelness: What a small narrow-minded world view. It is true, in Ireland we produce food for about 55 million people and most goes on exports to our close neighbors in Europe. We stop producing this food (especially beef) we just push that production to the likes of Brazil, hence causing an increase in carbon emissions. That’s why people are calling this a silly shortsighted goal. This isn’t thinking on a global scale and should be called out for what it is.
@Urban Living Dublin: I will help some more I just did, Roast beef dinner. Hopefully loads more to come.
@Alan Wright: Our production of beef and dairy hasn’t stopped Brazil from ramping up their production as is.
@FiannaFáilness FineGaelness: So, you want to still shift the production there anyway, to clear the rain forest and ship the beef halfway round the world. I get ya now, you don’t give a sh!t about global climate change, you’re just a mimby.
@Alan Wright: Read what I said again, and then tell me where I said I “want to still shift the production there anyway”?
Just because the grass is green doesn’t mean the industry is.
Why don’t we get rid of pets. Then we wouldn’t have to produce food to feed them and we wouldn’t need so many cattle.
Consumer Pays Principle
Petrol, diesel, gas consumers pay the carbon tax, not Russia or Saudi,
Similarly the 45 million Europeans consumers who eat Irish steaks and yogurt, cheese and baby food from Irish Agriculture should be allocated the CO2 / Methane emissions from the Irish national herd.
On this basis Ireland has one of the lowest greenhouse gas emissions per capita. No need to cull the National herd. Some daft mis modelling going on.
… else let them eat cake!
Funny how the average people have to suffer for the green agenda, yet Bill Gates can become the biggest landowner in the USA, and kalus schwab says that the WEF will buy the farms from the farmers in the Netherlands, and it’s Funny how all the so called”elites” can fly around in private jets. But h
If you want to go Jamaica for a family holiday pack in a jet with other people you’re the bad one, but getting rid of the cattle will save the world, maybe if the so called”elites”stop using private jet so they can have meetings, they’re complete hypocrites. It’s just another way for billionaires to dictate to people, and the government Bow to them for money and Future jobs, first it was turf, now it’s cattle. So they want to cull the population by freezing and starving.
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