Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----that are in place to ensure we promote the most carbon-efficient production anywhere in the Union where it can be done. We must be flexible enough to allow that principle to apply in areas like agriculture in which we are competitive.

Second, the science is continually changing and developing. The EU approach to biogenic methane is simply wrong. The IPCC report states, "man-made CO₂leads "to net warming, while reductions in CH₄... lead to a net cooling". That is a dramatic difference. If you keep emitting carbon dioxide, you build a problem forever. If you can start to stabilise and reduce methane levels, you actually start to cool the globe. They are entirely different but they are not treated differently in the way we calculate. That must change. Lumping the two together is unsustainable.

Let us consider a country such as Botswana, which I know a little about. How can we tell a country that regards having a small livestock herd as the very basis of its society that it must reduce in other sectors in order that it can cut its biogenic methane down to acceptable standards, according to that method of calculation? That is not sustainable. We need to show that we are responding. If the agriculture sector can respond and reduce biogenic methane, it will be save other sectors of the economy changes that could cost €1,000 per tonne. Let us think about that.

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