Mr. Oisín Coghlan:

The contributions from Deputies and Senators was very rich and I will try to address a few of them.

There was a specific question on the size of agricultural emissions and the level of overall Irish emission and our role in the global problem. I was asked whether the level of emissions from processors and creameries fall within the agricultural or the industrial sectors. As far as I understand and others may correct me on this, they are not classified as agricultural emission, as agricultural emissions are the land-based emissions only. The other ones would be in the industrial sector or potentially in the power generation sector in the EPA inventories. They are separate from what we talk about when we talk about agricultural emission, which are the methane and other gases related to agricultural production itself.

On Ireland's overall place and level of responsibility in the global emissions setting, Ireland is not being asked to do more than its fair share; every country has to do its proportionate share in reducing emissions over time. Europe has been relatively understanding, in the context of the European allocation of emissions, that Ireland was a developing country 20 years ago when this started and Ireland was asked to do less than other countries. We are not being asked to do more than anybody else. When I started my present job with Friends of the Earth a little more than ten years ago, I came from the overseas aid sector and at the time we were very proud of the fact that per person, we were the sixth most generous country in the world in terms of overseas aid. We had a very good track record on aid but I discovered then that we were the sixth most polluting country among the rich countries in terms of climate pollution. When I looked at that, it was a clear contradiction in how we interact with and show solidarity with poor communities in the global south. Since then the recession has reduced both our emissions per capita and our aid per capitabut we are still the eighth most polluting country in the rich world per person. This includes our agricultural emissions, as well as everything else. It is worth saying that agricultural emissions are about the same as they were in 1990 but transport emissions have more than doubled in that time. This is not about one sector. All sectors will have to pull their weight. We are now 12th per person in terms of overseas aid. Our pollution has remained relatively high per person and it behoves us to reduce that over time between now and 2050 to do our fair share.

On the issue of food, and Ms Gumbo has covered most of it, but a member raised a question on the intensification of production and imports as well.

Ireland imports more calories than it exports. For all the talk and reality of our food production, by the nature of our consumption patterns and our production patterns, Ireland is importing calories for 1.4 million people more than we export. Ireland is not a net contributor to global calories, never mind global food security, just by the reality of the current global food production system.

Questions were asked about Ireland's grass-based agriculture, the place of beef and dairy, whether we are just saying "Stop" and if there are other ways of looking at the issue of climate regimes that apply. Friends of the Earth for the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition are definitely not saying that beef and dairy production should stop now or overnight, or even in the immediate or foreseeable future. We are saying that to begin with we cannot bet the future of rural communities in Ireland on ever increasing beef and dairy production, given the carbon constraints that we all face around the world, the climate challenge and the fact that it is probably not practical for everyone in the world to have the dietary patterns we now have if we are to stay within the global carbon budget over the coming years.

Deputy McConalogue and Senator Mulherin spoke about the grass-based system inside the European Union being to Ireland's natural advantage and how could we possibly not use it. Senator Mac Lochlainn asked about consumption versus production and which is the best for responsibility. We have an EU trading system, for example, for electricity emissions, cement and so on. For the current round of EU negotiations, if we had come up with and proposed - it was on table - a European emissions trading system for agriculture within an overall limit of agricultural emissions, and if Ireland competed for ours to be the most efficient and to get the biggest share of that market, that would have been fine because it would not be creating new loopholes. It would have created a level playing field inside a limited budget. This is how Ireland treats things at a national level - we treat agriculture separately - but at EU level, Ireland has said to put them all together. Ireland basically ended up looking for loopholes for the agriculture sector to try to define our way out of the challenge. This is not practical.

On a global level and the issue of consumption versus production, it would be fairer if Ireland was accountable at international level for its emissions for things Ireland consumes rather than for things Ireland produces. In that case, all those beef and dairy exports would be the responsibility of India, China or the United States of America and not our responsibility. Ultimately, however, Ireland would be responsible for the emissions in the production of all the cars, washing machines and televisions we import from China and Japan. It is interesting that a good few years ago the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, funded research that showed on a production basis if all countries produced like Ireland, three planets would be needed to absorb the pollution. The pollution calculation for consumption ends up much the same. Ireland's consumption is about the same as three planets' worth of pollution, so neither is sustainable. It would, however, change the relative responsibilities within Ireland and this would have been worth looking at. That horse has bolted because that is a decision at UN international level. Farming representatives may have said that at this committee, and we have backed them in saying it, but it is not what Ireland tried to do in the UN negotiations leading up to the Paris Agreement. Ireland looked for exemptions for agricultural production rather than a new way of dealing with those emissions.

The carbon tax issue was raised a couple of times. I believe that carbon tax has a role to play but it is not a silver bullet. People respond more to smaller-scale incentives, be it the plastic bag tax, a congestion charge, a grant for a solar panel or a price for electricity from a solar panel. "Tangible" is the wrong word - it is more easy to get one's head around these incentives than the abstraction of a carbon tax. I believe a carbon tax has a role to play in the rest of the economy and in the agriculture sector because it changes the incentive structures for us. It makes polluting activities more expensive and it makes retrofitting a house, or moving in to forestry or other less polluting activities more environmentally attractive. On its own, however, a carbon tax will not do the trick.

Reference was made to whose pockets the carbon tax is coming from and into whose pockets it is going. It is often forgotten that when the tax was introduced in the budget in December 2010, VAT was reduced in the same budget. For a while those measures cancelled each other out. Essentially, one indirect and technically and socially regressive tax was reduced in the form of VAT and another tax was increased. At the time, not much was made of the fact that they were revenue neutral. The other way of doing it is to have it going in to the general Exchequer, or use it to pay Ireland's fines for overshooting our emissions, which is not ideal. Another idea on the table on this budget is that the carbon tax goes up significantly and the Citizens' Assembly said two things of interest in this regard. They said that they would be willing to pay higher carbon taxes themselves for more polluting activities, and they said that agriculture should not be exempt and should face similar pricing incentives. Raising the carbon tax is very much on the agenda for the coming budget, with a potential decrease in income tax at the same time to offset labour costs versus pollution costs, or it could be given back in a payment to people. people could pay carbon tax and then get it back in a tax dividend system. This is a social transfer to marginalised communities because those people who have a lower income spend less, so they would gain money from a carbon tax. Those persons who drive bigger cars and have a more expensive lifestyle would pay more in to the system. We could have a socially progressive tax if it was given back in a dividend to citizens.

Turning to the issue of opportunities in rural Ireland and especially energy opportunities, Mr. Joseph Curtain of the Institute of International and European Affairs is the lead author of a climate-smart agriculture report in which he brought together many stakeholders. In his address to the Citizens' Assembly, Mr. Curtain said: "Ambitious climate action can happen in such a way that benefits rural communities and in a manner that drives regionally dispersed economic development." Much of this is because of the opportunities around renewable energy, through both developer-led projects and community-led projects. I agree with Senator Mulherin that developer-led projects were not necessarily always done that well. Ireland did not have a system in place to guarantee a share of ownership, and not just a community benefit in the form of payment to the local sports club. The new government scheme provides for community shared ownership of developer-led projects, but it specifically provides for 20% of new renewable energy to be community-led projects where they have majority ownership. We are, however, disappointed that there was no provision for a price or payment for really small-scale micro level solar generators, particularly on the rooftops of farms, businesses and houses in the State and in rural Ireland. Our organisation and the Irish Farmers' Association are at one on this issue and we have both pushed for a scheme that would allow people to be paid for the electricity that they feed in to the grid. There is talk of a pilot scheme around grants, but grants are inefficient: they can be captured by the contractors who install the solar panels. It would be better to have a price support that would allow rural communities and others to benefit. I would like to see every school, in the State install solar panels on their roofs and be paid for electricity they generate.

There are real opportunities for rural Ireland in this regard and I hope this will be the focus when considering where Ireland goes now: how do we diversify agricultural income and other income streams to have vibrant and diverse economy in rural and urban Ireland, which is what we all want. I hope we can work together on that. I must bring my son to GAA training now so I must leave.