MINISTER FOR the Environment John Gormley has warned farmers that they may have to cut the size of the national herd if Ireland is to meet the EU’s tough CO2 emissions reduction targets.
But he insisted that EU states would agree to sign up to the EU climate change package this year, despite a number of concerns raised yesterday by his fellow environment ministers.
Speaking at an EU Council of Ministers meeting in Luxembourg, Mr Gormley said there was a real danger that emissions generated by agriculture would increase in the future and that it may be necessary to reduce the size of the seven-million strong national herd.
“We are looking at the difficulty in relation to agriculture. Obviously, the immediate reaction is if you have 28 per cent of emissions coming from agriculture, then you should begin to destock the national herd,” said Mr Gormley, who added that the Government’s climate change and energy security subcommittee was studying the issue in detail.
The UN recently found that livestock is responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together. Burning fuel to produce fertiliser to grow feed, to produce meat and to transport it – and clearing vegetation for grazing – produces 9 per cent of all CO2 emissions.
But the manure and wind produced by cattle makes up one-third of the world’s methane emissions, a gas that warms the world 20 times faster than carbon dioxide.
Under the European Commission’s climate change package, Ireland is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 when compared with 2005 levels.
Mr Gormley said the national herd had fallen in recent years, but he said the ongoing food crisis had opened up opportunities for beef and dairy farmers in developing markets such as India and China. He said he raised the danger of “carbon leakage” in the agricultural sector, whereby farming would relocate outside Europe, with EU ministers.
The Government is asking Brussels to allow it more flexibility in the way it can meet the 20 per cent emissions reduction target, for example, by counting forestry as carbon sinks.
Mr Gormley said he was also looking in a scientific way at changing how farming was conducted in Ireland in areas such as animal feed, afforestation and biofuels. “We are looking to see how can we safeguard and enhance, if anything, the livelihood of farmers while at the same time meeting our Kyoto protocol and post-Kyoto targets,” he said.
Several other member states such as Hungary and Poland also expressed concern about elements of the EU climate change package.