Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the delegation to Ireland and to the committee. They have had a very active few days to debate the issue of climate change and its impact. I welcome the fact that they are coming here to provide an international perspective on how they are affected. As an Irish parliamentarian, I would like to give my perspective to them.

This is a significant food producing country which has many natural resources that it does not fully exploit currently. That brings its own challenges in terms of reducing our carbon footprint and reaching targets set by the EU or through our own climate change legislation, the debate on which continues. We are a responsible State which is interested in assisting other countries, which our track record of assistance to countries that have been in trouble in the past proves. The delegation mentioned first-hand accounts of drought while other countries have experienced flooding. I saw on the news some contributors to the conference explain how the ice caps are melting. All of these points must be listened to carefully. The problem I have - and I will be straight with the delegation, which must hear an Irish perspective - is agriculture. We must produce food. We contribute enormously to food security and must find sustainable ways to produce food which do not produce an excessive carbon footprint. Progress has been made in Ireland with the reduction in emissions per litre of milk by 13% in the last 20 years. We have a very sustainable, grass-based agriculture system which results in high methane production, which contributes a great deal to our carbon footprint. We have a dilemma as to whether we set targets to cut the amount of methane produced by reducing the national herd. Cutting the number of cows and beef cattle will automatically have a detrimental effect not only on the economy of which the agriculture sector is a main driver and contributor to recovery from recession, but also on food production and food security.

I am being very honest in pointing out that this is the dilemma for Irish politicians. We must try to bring stakeholders with us to ensure that they adapt, innovate and formulate new agricultural practices which allow them to continue to produce food at a sustainable rate while also reducing carbon emissions. I suspect that is the reason national targets are not being set. We must bring stakeholders with us. Many environmentalists and NGOs say in the context of renewable energy that we must reduce carbon emissions by improving renewable energy technologies, but when major renewable projects are proposed - as with the large-scale wind energy projects in the midlands - some of the same environmentalists oppose them. While we want to increase renewable energy sources to reduce our carbon footprint, we have a conflict also. I have a problem with that. As a nation, we must decide whether we are going to reduce our carbon emissions. If so, we must be serious about how we achieve that.

In other areas, we are making progress. In low carbon electricity generation, a generation station in Great Island, which was dependent on oil and which was producing 240 MW of power, is being converted to a 460 MW generating station based on gas, which is far more sustainable and will decarbonise electricity generation in the State. I want to assist and to reduce our carbon footprint. We are a very small country and must protect those sectors that are driving our economy and contributing to food security. I do not say this out of personal business interest as I am not a farmer. We must move forward sustainably while bringing stakeholders with us. By simply setting targets, we could put all of that in jeopardy and find ourselves in a far worse position than the one we are in.