Ms Niamh Garvey:

I thank Deputy O’Rourke for his very interesting question. Thinking forward to the new project that NESC will be engaged in, which will examine the area of just transition for agriculture, we will be looking at this across the economic, environmental as well as the social impacts. There are a whole range of transition options or measures that will be available in the area of agriculture. Some of these will have different economic impacts or co-benefits in different areas of environmental resilience. The social one is absolutely key. We already know from many of the measures, for example, in the Teagasc MACC - marginal abatement cost curve - that certain measures are perhaps more socially acceptable. Behaviour change is a very big part of what needs to be supported and encouraged, for instance, understanding the perspectives of farmers as regards the perceived acceptability of the different measures.

Forestry came up in the discussions in the past two days. Some of the barriers around afforestation have arisen for a range of reasons. However, we also know that there are cultural and social acceptability aspects that will be very important to tease out with rural and farming communities in understanding those social elements as part of a just transition in agriculture.