EU imports from South America also increase global warming

Almost all expert opinion clearly recognises that global warming will cause serious disruption to the lives of most people on the planet and that it poses an existential threat to the continued existence on the planet as we know it.

This is the starting point for the analysis and commentary that follows about, firstly, the role of land use change and sustainable intensification in the reduction of global warming and, secondly, about the gross distortion in many of the claims about the importance of biodiversity for global warming.

Biodiversity loss is frequently, and incorrectly, cited as an important driver of global warming.

While biodiversity loss and global warming are often correlated, there is little evidence that biodiversity loss itself causes global warming. For example, the burning of peatlands in Indonesia for the production of palm oil causes a massive release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and it also causes the loss of biodiversity in the area.

However, it is the ‘burning’ of the peatlands to make way for palm oil plantations that is the key driver of the greenhouse gas emissions and the loss of biodiversity is a secondary effect.

Throughout history, the conversion of forestry, scrubland, rough grazing and especially peatland for food production has caused the loss of soil carbon to the atmosphere and also the release of carbon dioxide from the vegetation that was usually burned.

The loss of biodiversity also occurred, but it was not the driver of greenhouse gas emissions.

Global temperatures

Rising temperatures will probably cause further shifts/losses in biodiversity, but biodiversity losses will not cause a rise in global temperatures.

The importance of land use and land use change for greenhouse gas emissions has been recognised in all the major Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports on climate change.

The effects of land use changes on biodiversity loss are clearly recognised but there is little or no evidence produced, which supports the idea that biodiversity loss causes an increase in greenhouse gas emissions or is a significant driver of climate change.

The following are some direct quotations from the IPCC reports about land use change:

The IPCC “summary for policymakers” lists 43 options that could reduce net emissions by 2030. The two options with the greatest potential were, unsurprisingly, wind energy and solar energy. The next three options with the greatest potential were:

In addition, improved sustainable forest management, reduced methane and nitrous oxide emissions, dietary change and reduced food waste were listed.

However, dietary change and reduced food waste are not the responsibility of farmers and landowners. Instead, they depend on the actions of the general population.

Land use change

At Irish, EU and global level, we must exploit the potential of land use change to counteract global warming to the maximum degree possible.

We must preserve all the world’s peatlands and tropical wetlands (tropical forests, peatlands in Indonesia and Malaysia, etc) that contain vast amounts of organic carbon in their soils and in their above ground biomass.

We must limit the amount of carbon dioxide loss from peatlands that are degraded already, probably through rewetting

We should limit the conversion of savannas and rough grazing land to cropland, such as converting the Brazilian Cerrado for the production of soybean because of the loss of soil carbon which it causes.

We must limit deforestation and promote afforestation and reforestation to the maximum degree possible and with the optimum amount of carbon capture.

We must limit the amount of carbon dioxide loss from peatlands that are degraded already, probably through rewetting.

We should produce as much bioenergy as possible, consistent with the other demands for land use.

In the future, we may be able to use biochar, which can sequester large amounts of carbon in agricultural soils. We must produce food for the world’s increasing population while minimising emissions and maximising soil carbon capture.

All of these will increase the pressure on the finite amount of land that is available and, at this point, it seems that bioenergy and biochar may exert too much pressure on a finite land resource.

Conflicts

For some of the land use changes that are desirable from a global warming perspective, we are in a win-win situation in that we reduce emissions and also preserve biodiversity.

However, more commonly, there are significant conflicts between otherwise desirable objectives.

The pressure for more land for more food for a population that is expected to increase from eight billion to 10 billion soon after 2050 will clash with the demand for land for forestry and for land for bioenergy, as well as land for “nature and biodiversity”.

We will have to decide between competing objectives as best we can, hopefully on a rational and well-informed basis – and not on the basis of the greatly exaggerated claims in many of the EU documents about the importance of biodiversity.

In light of the obstacles that face us in meeting the global warming challenges, we in Ireland and in the EU have attributed far too much importance to the impact on biodiversity of some of the changes that would help limit global warming.

This claim is based on a value system that places much more importance on the welfare and wellbeing of the world’s human population than on the welfare of other species of flora and fauna with which we share the planet.

Irish and EU public opinion has focused too much on the importance of biodiversity, when there are other issues at stake, up to now. The rubber meets the road for Irish agriculture and for Irish forestry with the passage of the EU Nature Restoration Law regulations – and with the ‘unwitting’ support of most of the Irish MEPs.

Targets

Inserting targets for grassland butterflies and farmland birds for Irish farming is almost weird, even though it is hard to see how these targets will be enforced in terms of obligatory farm practices.

The targets for forestry around biodiversity and for the forest ecosystems may have much more immediate effects and are of much greater concern for the forest and timber industry.

The forestry lobby group Forest Industries Ireland recently stated that the biodiversity regulations would cost the industry €3bn.

The proposed regulations may also have a dramatic effect on the Government’s target of increasing the amount of land devoted to forestry in the immediate future.

We should not undermine the critical contribution forestry can make in the fight against global warming by tying the foresters hands behind their backs in Ireland and in the EU on the basis of little more than trendy biodiversity clichés.

Land use and land use change is a major theme running through the IPCC reports on climate change as I have referred to earlier.

At global level, even if we get as close as is feasible to net zero in carbon emissions for transport, heating, manufacturing, etc, we will have some residual carbon emissions that will be very difficult to eliminate and we will have to balance these residual carbon emissions through carbon sequestration.

Land will be the key resource for this, especially through maximising carbon capture in forestry, through maximising soil carbon capture in agriculture and by retaining the vast reservoir of carbon stored in peatlands.

The term “sustainable intensification” appears repeatedly in the IPCC reports on land use and how the world can achieve net zero. It means we have to produce as much food and timber as we can from the land that we use and that we do it with the minimum amount of greenhouse gas emissions – and, obviously, with the minimum amount of pollution and damage to biodiversity.

This is, indeed, a very challenging task.

Any beef that is consumed should be produced with the minimum amount of emissions.

It should not be produced by slow-growing animals and it should not be produced by animals that must also carry a heavy overhead of carbon emissions from land that is cleared from areas such as the tropical forests in Brazil. The same applies to milk products, and to palm oil and soybean.

In Ireland, we meet the criteria for sustainable intensification for dairy and beef – producing less of either in Ireland will increase global emissions and will increase global warming.

Global warming

Importing beef into the EU from Mercosur countries will increase global warming. In fact, displacing Irish beef exports from third-country markets by beef from Mercosur countries will also increase global warming. Ignoring this will not change the effects.

The world needs sustainable intensification of food production as was repeatedly recognised in the IPCC reports.

The notion that we can produce enough food for the increasing world population and enough timber to replace much of the energy intensive materials used in building without sustainable intensification and without the efficient use of fertiliser, pesticides and genetically improved plant species is utterly delusional.

The Irish Government and the European Commission made a basic error when they decided to include the targets for emissions from farming as part of the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement.

Under the NDC system, Ireland – and even more so, New Zealand – will be under great pressure to reduce their dairy herds, but the demand for dairy products will be met from extra milk production in countries whose dairy products have a much higher carbon footprint. The same is true for beef and the effects of the NDC system are even more pronounced.

Interestingly, New Zealand has recently decided to exclude methane from its emissions trading scheme.

You simply cannot effectively and fairly manage targets for truly global products and global markets on the basis of national carbon budgets. When products with a low carbon footprint are displaced by products with a higher carbon footprint, this will lead to global warming. This cannot be wished away or ignored. Climate justice requires that all sectors, including farming, are treated fairly.

This basic mistake in carbon budgeting will continue to fester and cause divisions in Ireland for decades to come unless a solution is found – and farmers worldwide own and manage most of the land needed to mitigate climate warming, so their commitment and goodwill is important.

It is Irish Government’s responsibility to fairly look after the interests of all sectors of the Irish population, and to promote policies that will simultaneously reduce global warming and not increase it as under the present policy built around nationally determined contributions.