Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The short-term impact of methane is very high. In that context, is there not a strong argument for paying a premium for methane reduction? I accept that there is an issue around verification, but is it not a valid vision to suggest that we should pay farmers for methane reductions and that they should decide how they want to achieve them? I accept that farmers who have already engaged in very good soil management will not be rewarded and that it will be those whose management heretofore was not good who will be rewarded by some of these incentive schemes. Surely, however, it is a vision for the sector to suggest that we pay for what we want to reduce. What we want to reduce is methane emissions, nitrogen emissions and so on. Why is Mr. Price so opposed to a vision that proposes the creation of a new incentive structure? It seems to me that Europe has, to some degree, frustrated the emergence of same because it does not envisage paying for methane reductions. The EU has set targets that do not have that sort of structure within them, even though there are those sorts of payment structures in other sectors.

I admit that it is a challenge in terms of metrics and verification development to do that, but surely this is a good way of delivering our primary objective, which is to see methane levels go down. If we pay for it and if Europe recognises that because it has very strong short-term temperature-raising effects, there is merit in paying a premium now to get those early reductions in methane because farmers will then see a viable future in managing their farms in order to balance food production with methane management. I do not see why Mr. Price is opposing the evolution of that. Surely if something went wrong in the Australian market, we can learn from that and seek to correct it.