Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions fell in Ireland in the third quarter of 2023 according to a new European Union (EU) report today (Thursday March, 28).
The Eurostat report highlights that EU economy greenhouse gas emissions were estimated to be 787 million tonnes of CO2-equivalents In the third quarter of 2023.
This represents a 7.1 % decrease compared with the same quarter of 2022.
The latest Eurostat report identifies the economic sectors which were responsible for most GHG emissions in Q3 these ranged from manufacturing – which accounted for 21.6 %, electricity and gas supply – at 17.6 % – agriculture which generated 15.4 %, households at 14.9 % and finally transportation and storage at 14.4 %.
GHG emissions
According to the latest Eurostat report GHG emissions were estimated to have fallen in 23 EU countries, out of these 11 countries also recorded a fall in the GDP in Q3 2023 and one of these countries was Ireland.
Climate Action Plan
Meanwhile according to the fourth and final progress report on Ireland’s Climate Action Plan 96 out of 161 new actions that had originally been scheduled for completion in Q4 2023 were delivered -which translated into a 60% rate achieved.
The report highlights examples of high impact sectoral actions completed in Q4 2023 including the continuing programme to “rehabilitate former peatland production land”.
However it also underlined that one of the sector actions that was delayed in Q4 2023 was the development of a “proposal for a cow reduction or an exit scheme”.
Cow reduction proposal
The final progress report states that agriculture is the “largest GHG emitting sector in Ireland” and was responsible for 34.3% of national emissions in 2022.
“DAFM were due to publish a proposal for a cow reduction or an exit scheme.
“It did not complete in Q4 2023 and will carry forward for delivery and reporting under Climate Action Plan 24 as a high impact action for the sector,” the report detailed.
It also outlined that the 2023 plan “recognised that, to have an impact, any voluntary herd reduction must be structured in a way that ensures that reductions in breeding ruminants on one farm are not offset by increases in overall breeding ruminant numbers (i.e. more cows on other farms).
“The careful design of any cow reduction or exit scheme would be key to achieving this objective.
“The completion of this action is also among the recommendations of the Food Vision sectoral groupings to provide a further emissions reduction option to farmers.”