The Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine (JOCAFM) will address methane emissions next week, with the aim of holding a sitting dedicated to the issue before the Dáil summer break, committee chair Jackie Cahill has said.
The committee is due to discuss how the Irish government is calculating methane emissions, however, all scheduled committee sittings before the break will focus on the Food Ombudsman Bill.
A private committee meeting will be held on Tuesday (June 28) at which, Deputy Cahill said, a proposal will be made to seek an additional sitting either before or the week after the summer break.
The Fianna Fáil TD for Tipperary, Deputy Cahill said:
“A number of committee members have been on to me, and I feel the same myself, that we need to deal with this [issue of methane emissions] before the summer break.”
The planned committee meeting on methane emissions will be addressed by Prof. Myles Allen, a climate change researcher from the University of Oxford. Prof. Allen is disputing the way that methane-emission figures are being calculated in Ireland, the deputy said.
The debate is based on the different impact of methane emissions compared to long-lived gases, including nitrous oxide from livestock and synthetic fertiliser, and carbon dioxide from urea.
Prof. Allen served on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for its third, fourth and fifth assessments. His research also observes that carbon-dioxide emissions largely determine mean global-surface warming.
Methane emissions
The deputy said the committee is waiting with interest to hear a different opinion. However, he emphasised that he cannot prejudge Prof. Allen’s research or what the analysis of the committee will be afterwards.
Stating that he does not have a view “one way or the other”, Deputy Cahill said:
“All farmers and the agri-food industry would be delighted if there was solid scientific evidence to contradict the way that the emissions totals are being calculated at the moment.”
A recent report by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) projected that, under existing measures, agricultural emissions will increase by 1.9% over the 2020-2030 period.
The EPA noted that methane emissions in agriculture must reduce by up to 30%, to meet the lower range of its reduction target under the 2021 Climate Action Plan. The plan outlines a 22-30% cut in agricultural emissions by 2030.