'Climate emergency' to trigger hard changes on farms

TDs adopted an amendment declaring a "climate emergency" on Thursday night, becoming the second parliament after the UK's to adopt this language.

The Dáil adopted a Fianna Fáil amendment that "declares a climate and biodiversity emergency" when endorsing the recommendations of the Oireachtas committee on climate action.

The new language adds urgency to the measures recommended by the committee, which include the implementation of Teagasc's list of climate measures in agriculture and reviews of forestry and soil use, including peatlands.

Fianna Fáil's spokesperson on climate action Timmy Dooley TD introduced the amendment and obtained cross-party support for it, but warned: "Declaring an emergency doesn't paint the full picture."

"Profound and difficult changes"

Minister for Climate Action Richard Bruton echoed this, saying that declaring an emergency was the easy part, but finding political agreement to bring people "very profound and difficult changes to the way they live" would be more difficult.

"We have to change the way we run our farms, and what many of our farmers have been doing for decades, and it will come hard for them to make those changes," Minister Bruton said. He is now due to present a Government plan to achieve this.

"We have to accept that there will be more windfarms and associated with them will be more interconnectors, more infrastructure built in my backyard," he added.

The adopted amendment also calls for a Citizen's Assembly to examine the response to biodiversity loss.

Earlier this month, Wicklow County Counciln too, had declared a climate emergency.

Reaction

Reacting to the amendment, IFA environment chair Thomas Cooney said it was “a wake-up call following a decade of climate inaction by successive Governments”.

Although the main actions identified by Teagasc were known since 2009, Cooney said there has been no support for measures such as farm-scale renewable energy or the development of forestry on unenclosed land. "Instead we have lost a decade to acrimony and finger wagging including trying to make farmers the fall guys for decades of climate inaction in this country," he added.

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