Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

My Department does not have a estimate of the impact of Covid-19 on agricultural emissions in 2020. Responsibility for maintaining the national inventory for greenhouse gas emissions in Ireland rests with the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, operating under the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. The EPA reports on emissions from all sectors of our economy on an annual basis and the metrics used in calculating greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors are based in EU legislation.

As the agriculture sector continues to develop and grow, it is important to ensure it does so within a framework of sustainability that also ensures our resilience in dealing with future changes in our climate. The programme for Government is very clear that we are committed to an average 7% per annum reduction in overall greenhouse gas emissions from 2021 to 2030, which is a 51% reduction over the decade, and to achieving net zero emissions by 2050. This 2050 target being set in law by the climate action Bill is to achieve a climate neutral economy that balances emissions and removals within the State by the end of 2050 and in subsequent years.

Reducing emissions, termed "mitigation", is a critical element in addressing climate change but the process of building resilience and adapting to the changes we are expecting to see in our climate, termed "adaptation", is equally important. With increases in average annual temperatures, significant decreases in summer rainfall and heavier rainfall events in winter and autumn months projected towards the middle of the century, it is essential we begin to take the necessary steps to build a strong and resilient sector.

In 2019, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine published a climate change sectoral adaptation plan for the agriculture, forestry and seafood sectors which sets out 16 actions and a number of sub-actions across the three sectors. This, our first statutory adaptation plan, is about preparing our systems to deal with the inevitable changes in climate by building resilience to the effects of climate change and weather related events in the agriculture, forestry and seafood sectors.

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