Professor Hannah Daly:

My colleagues and I have objected to temperature neutrality on overlapping but different parallel scientific disagreements, we will say, but I would agree with the basis of the submission made by them.

The framing of the report we have published is that we can stabilise methane emissions and claim climate neutrality because methane emissions are short lived. Therefore, if we stabilise emissions, the temperature increase caused by one burst is offset by the decline from an emission ten years ago. We can claim to be not adding to additional warming, but that ignores the substantial warming that has already been created by our ongoing methane emissions. If Ireland's position is that we claim temperature neutrality, we can stabilise our very high per capitamethane emissions from our export-orientated livestock sector and claim to be compatible with the Paris Agreement, or if we reduce methane emissions, for example, by 20%, 30% or more, under temperature neutrality that is counted as a sort of cooling or an offset. It is like saying that methane emissions decline is cooling, whereas we might still be emitting far more than is compatible with the Paris Agreement. This is why it is seen as inadequate.

Global methane emissions from human activities have caused the concentration of such emissions in the atmosphere to be two and half times what they were before industrial development. That is partially from the fossil fuel industry and partially from agriculture - mainly livestock. That has caused approximately 0.5°C of the 1.5°C of warming that we have already witnessed. Approximately one third of the warming we experience is attributable to climate change. The IPCC and the UN are clear that the 0.5°C of warming needs to decline. We have the tools. We have methane reduction as a lever. Otherwise, temperatures will exceed the Paris Agreement temperature goals excessively and it will be very difficult to come back down to a safe temperature.