Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State would probably like me to move on to the issue of agriculture. I will. The agriculture sector is stuck with the same profit-before-people logic. The lies and spin surrounding the discussion of agriculture's emissions problem are becoming farcical. On 8 November, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine told me I was wrong in my view that emissions from agriculture were on the rise and that, in fact, between 1990 and 2015, greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture sector reduced by 5.5%. According to the EPA, emissions from agriculture in 2016 were 3.5% below their 1990 levels but they increased in four out of the past five years, namely in 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2016. If the Food Wise programme continues, we will see an increase next year and in the two following years. The IFA is going around peddling the lie that there has been a 6% reduction since 1990 but what it and the Minister are omitting is that the EPA's figures are gleaned using the 2006 guidelines from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. A project sponsored by the NASA Carbon Monitoring System research initiative has found that global livestock methane emissions for 2011 are 11% higher than the estimates based on guidelines provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2006. The EPA, IFA and the Minister may all have differing versions next year.

Last week, the Taoiseach said that Irish beef production is more carbon efficient than beef production in South America and that we should not displace production to other countries that are less carbon efficient. This argument sidesteps the fact that we have not a chance in hell of achieving climate change mitigation if we do not dramatically cut down on the amount of meat that we eat globally. If we keep consuming meat as we are, we will not solve the climate change problems. That is a fact of life. The Minister of State, Deputy Andrew Doyle, may shake his head all he likes. I know only too well that it is madness to even challenge the agriculture sector about anything it does. I am actually as fond of agriculture as any of those opposite but I do believe we need a different approach.

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