The carbon budgets released yesterday (Monday, October 25) have generated much reaction across the agricultural and rural sphere.
Many farm organisations are concerned over what the impact of these emissions reduction targets will be for agriculture in the coming years.
Meanwhile, one TD has claimed that the recommended carbon budgets put forward by the Climate Change Advisory Council (CCAC) “will generate a rural revolution akin to the protests on water charges”.
Independent TD for Laois-Offaly Carol Nolan said: “The carbon budgets that have been proposed are simply unacceptable and will be fiercely resisted by anyone who has the first clue about the real-world impacts they will generate.”
Nolan argued: “Every single aspect of Irish life, but in particular Irish rural life, will be adversely impacted by the knock-on effects of introducing a punitive and absurd emissions regime that will make it more expensive to produce food, increase the need for imports and put tens of thousands of people out of work.”
She added: “Transport sectors like hauliers are already crippled by the costs associated with the carbon tax. How will this sector survive further year-on-year increases and additional regulatory burdens.”
Noting the CCAC modelling also suggests a removal of coal and peat for residential heating by 2030, Nolan pointed out that Minister for Climate, Environment and Communications Eamon Ryan said in September that there would be no ban on burning sod peat for those who had a right to harvest it.
This statement on peat contained in the CCAC’s technical report – released this weekend – are, Nolan claims, an example of “creeping criminalisation”.
“The climate council is dumping ideological nonsense all across rural Ireland with the full blessing of a complicit and grossly out-of-touch government that does not have the first clue about how hard life is becoming under this green dictatorship,” Nolan claimed.