Agriculture `is main offender on emissions'

A new study of potential pollution sources has identified agriculture as the economic activity posing the biggest environmental threat to Ireland in the form of discharges and emissions.

The research, conducted by the Economic and Social Research Institute, shows farming featuring strongly under headings such as global warming potential, release of gases causing acid rain, and chemical discharges into water resulting in eutrophication which places considerable strain on rivers and lakes.

The report, published by the Central Statistics Office yesterday, provides further indications that the Republic is set to exceed its commitments on controlling greenhouse gases under the UN Kyoto Protocol. The research is a first attempt to marry "environmental accounts" with economic indicators. "This study explicitly links the pressures on the environment to the economic activity that has caused them," according to Ms Sue Scott, head of the ESRI environmental policy research centre.

Agriculture contributes some 29 per cent of the national total of "global warming potential" (based on calculation of the equivalent of CO 2 tonnages released into the atmosphere) - unlike the EU trend, where industry is the biggest contributor.

Farming is responsible for about 49 per cent of total "acid rain precursors" released - that is, chemicals/gases that cause acid rain.

Asked if farmers should pay most in any future "pollution taxes", Ms Scott said there was a case for redirecting subsidies. On the possibility of reducing cattle numbers, she said the most immediate reduction might be in sheep. "There are sheep on hillsides that are not even eaten. They are there as a social rather than economic measure."

They had contributed to landscape degradation and water pollution. Payments for livestock through premiums and headage could be redirected, she said. "There are various smart ways of supporting low-income families."

Ms Scott denied Ireland was going to be "hopelessly off-line" in its Kyoto targets (it is committed to increasing emissions of greenhouse gases to 13 per cent above 1990 levels by 2012). While one estimate suggested a level of 32 per cent, if the predicted increase in forestry materialised, the level could work out at 23 per cent.

The ESRI report, which concentrates on 1994 figures, indicates more emissions contributing to global warming from industry than households.

On discharges to inland waters, the food sector is the biggest offender within industry, but it is dwarfed by discharges from agriculture. Industry, excluding the fuel, power and water providers, is generating by far the most nonhazardous landfill waste, 6.9 million tonnes compared, for example, to households at 1.3 million tonnes (based on 1995 figures).

Ms Scott said the figures related to emissions and discharges, which were not quite the same as pollution. Pollution amounted to harmful concentrations or damage, which may or may not result from emissions, but the data were useful in showing "potential for damage".