Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish Professor Boyle the very best of luck in the next phase of his career. I ask him to put on his hat from the Climate Change Advisory Council. As he knows, a statutory function is to be provided for the Climate Change Advisory Council and the climate action (amendment) Bill will set out a five-year carbon emissions cap for the country. That has to be rubber-stamped by the Dáil, although, sadly, just rubber-stamped. Sectoral caps will then be put in place without any consultation with the Oireachtas whatsoever.

My concern in regard to these sectoral caps is that they are five-year caps but agriculture needs a long lead-in time to bring about change. My concern is that when we hit 2025, and the Department of Transport and the Department responsible for energy have kept their hands in their pockets, so to speak, the statisticians will then turn to agriculture and tell it to reduce stock numbers overnight in order to try to achieve our 2025 or 2030 targets. Can Professor Boyle comment on the built-in incentive that is now being put in through primary legislation for other Government Departments to do as little as possible and let agriculture carry the can in the fourth or fifth the year of the implementation?

I want to come back to the broader issues and the issue of the structure that is there in terms of climate targets. As we know, climate targets are designed by industrial countries to deal with the bulk of emissions coming from industry, cities and intensive agriculture. In Ireland, 37% of our population live on 96% of the land mass in rural areas and we have only two cities with a population over 100,000.

Our challenges and issues are very different from those of any other EU country. It is about managing our land use and our dispersed populations. In that context, an in-built industrialised-country bias is being adopted here and enacted into legislation that could have a detrimental impact on the economy. Take, for example, beef production. We all accept that Ireland, as a net exporter of beef, is the most efficient producer within the European Union. The environmental targets as they are currently structured will see the decimation of the Irish beef industry, which will be replaced with beef coming from South America. If it comes from the Amazon basin, it is 35 times more carbon intensive than the beef from Ireland and that is before it is exported to Europe. While that is okay from a climate calculation point of view, it has a detrimental impact in terms of global warming. Our guests might comment on that.

The issue of biogenic methane is related to that. Deputy Leddin highlighted the issue well. The difficulty is that environmentalists look purely at the figures on this matter rather than at the source of the methane. The methane coming from agriculture is part of a biological cycle, and as long as numbers are maintained, that biological cycle will remain in equilibrium. Disappointingly, while the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Bill pays lip service to biogenic methane, it will not enshrine in law that it should be treated differently. Professor Boyle mentioned the approach being taken in New Zealand. Will he elaborate on the fact that in that country, biogenic methane is treated in legislation very differently from other sources of methane that add to global warming?

Ireland is very involved in the scientific community in terms of agricultural sector. Based on Professor Boyle's engagement with the IPCC and the community feeding in to that, does he think that the IPCC approach is likely to look differently at the various sources of methane and not treat them all the same, as is done currently, given that each of them has a very different impact on global warming?

Professor Boyle spoke earlier about the grass-based systems in Ireland in the context of his home place. Disadvantaged land types cannot be used for tillage or for growing crops to feed the public directly. The only way food can be produced is by converting stock into animal protein that can then be used to feed our population. In many parts of Ireland, that is the only way that such land can be actively cultivated to produce protein fit for humans. Based purely on the mathematical calculations being done at the moment, however, whether we like it or not, what will happen is if an overall cap is put on stock numbers in Ireland, dairy numbers will increase as the beef herd haemorrhages in terms of numbers. That will take much of the beef production off marginal land and let the land go fallow, which is not good in terms of food production and is definitely not good in terms of low-emissions protein production to feed our global population, particularly when we use grass-based extensive agriculture with its low-emissions profile.

How do we deal with the contradiction in terms of the environmental zealots and mathematicians on one side who are saying we have comply with these figures rather than looking at what is best for our global environment, which is to maintain and support small indigenous farmers in rural communities across the west and north west of Ireland rather than shutting them down in terms of large beef production in South America or dairy production in other parts of the world?