Mr. Trevor Donnellan:

I will try to be as brief as possible. There is a high level of awareness of the four friction points between agriculture and the environment. These are greenhouse gases, ammonia, water quality and biodiversity. One of the points made clear in the discussions we had was that some of the solutions in respect of climate need to pay heed to biodiversity issues. We need to look at the solutions and troubleshoot them or validate them in the context of what they mean for biodiversity. In an ideal world we would like to imagine a situation where solutions on climate are also optimal solutions for biodiversity. I suggest that might not always be the case and there may be the need for consideration of the trade-offs between solutions that might deliver heavily with respect to climate and might not be as successful as other solutions with respect to biodiversity. This will come down to choices.

Going back to my previous intervention, I would say having data to tell us about what is happening at a national level in respect of biodiversity will be particularly important. We need to measure properly to understand how it is changing over time and how interventions with respect to providing climate solutions are also affecting biodiversity.