Mr. Stephen Treacy:

I have a few numbers here, but I will stress that this is building on Teagasc's work on its marginal abatement cost curve, MACC, as well as on the work that was put into the Ag Climatise strategy. We take their information. We work closely with Teagasc to understand the impacts and to incorporate them into the projections and, ultimately, into the inventory.

In terms of the structure of agriculture, agricultural emissions are made up of: 65% methane, 30% N2O and about 5% carbon dioxide. That number includes combustion emissions associated with use of tractors. Therefore, one can see the measures needed to target those emissions. Methane is the biggest part of it. Enteric fermentation is just under 60% of the total emissions. Manure management is about 10%. Soil emissions are approximately 27%. It is a combination of nitrogen and methane impacting measures. We do not yet have full detail on the methane measures. The 16.5 million tonnes saving identified in the Climate Action Plan is made up of approximately 14 million tonnes of methane measures. The remainder comes from nitrogen, with some offsets for liming. There are emissions associated with liming, but that will go the opposite direction. However, liming has a net-positive benefit in adjusting soil pH and in allowing fertiliser take-up.

In terms of beef genomics, the breeder index and all of these things listed in the climate action plan and in the strategy for the Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine, that is about 14 million tonnes.

The urea fertiliser ban, increased use of inhibited urea and the level of the sales target limit proposed in Ag Climatise altogether add up to about 6.4 million tonnes over the 2021 to 2030 period. Offset against that is the slight increase in emissions where stabilised urea is used instead of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, NPK, or other fertilisers that have a lower greenhouse gas impact. There is an offset of approximately 1.5 million tonnes. That is where I got about 5 million tonnes from fertiliser measures.

The Deputy mentioned other measures, such as slurry spreading. Some of these measures are important from an ammonia perspective, and even more for greenhouse gases. By slurry spreading, we do not mean splash-plate spreading. We mean shoe trailing, slurry injection, or other methods that do not create the same level of emissions as the traditional splash-plate slurry spreaders. Many of these are already happening. In our 2019 inventory, we saw that low emission slurry spreading made up 16% of slurry being spread. We also saw a fourfold increase in protected urea uptake. These measures are beginning to happen. We need to see them accelerate in the future so that the vast majority of slurry is spread that way, similarly with the uptake in urea.

Clover reduces the need for fertiliser because it fixes nitrogen itself. That is where it comes in. Some of these measures do not have a huge impact individually. However, the targets for 2030 are challenging in nature and-----