John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

CAP reform will reduce emissions by 2.4 million tonnes per annum. About 2 million tonnes of emissions will be removed annually from the atmosphere by Irish forests. These are significant reductions. From his work on the Joint Committee on Climate Change and Energy Security, the Deputy will be aware that the Environmental Protection Agency has also done significant work in this regard. I understand that the committee was addressed by Dr. Murphy from UCC on the way in which soilage could be used to create bio-energy. These are significant developments but they are still in their infancy. We need to address the potential for second-generation biofuels. Clearly, we have experienced difficulties with the first generation of biofuels but we can go beyond that.

There are constant technological advances. I recall that many years ago, when I was Lord Mayor of Dublin, I had a car that ran on biofuel, which was the butt of many jokes at the time. Since then, of course, the situation has changed. Given the pioneering work undertaken by Bernard Rice in Teagasc, one can see the sort of change that can be achieved by an individual. If everyone now concentrates on this sector, we can make a significant impact on agriculture. We are talking about major emissions from the agriculture sector of over 28%, but I am confident that with the sort of innovative changes we are examining we can reduce that figure significantly.

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