Listen: Government will set carbon target for agriculture – Minister Bruton

Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment Richard Bruton has said the Government will set a limit on greenhouse gas emissions on for agriculture, but not a quota on production.

“There will be a carbon target for agriculture,” Minister Bruton told the IFA AGM this Wednesday.

Assigning sectoral targets for agriculture, transport and heating is not required by EU legislation, which groups these industries together when assigning environmental obligations.

“We totally reject that target by sector,” IFA environment chair Thomas Cooney replied. “We don’t want quotas coming back in.”

Minister Bruton assured the group the target would not be a quota on production. He added that it was not yet clear whether the target would be set in his all-government plan, which will be published by the end of March.

Teagasc research

Minister Bruton cited Teagasc research listing 26 actions allowing up to a 6m tonne reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture as a source that could help set the target.

This would form part of the strategy to cut Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions by 55m tonnes by 2030. Failing that, Bruton estimated that the cost of fines to the country could be €5.5bn.

Any measures supported by the Government to cut emissions would have to be “cost-effective”, he insisted.

For example, small-scale electricty generation by farmers will have a role to play in offsetting their own electricity consumption, but not as a large-scale strategy to feed the national grid as it would be more expensive than other sources such as offshore wind farms.