Results 3,281-3,300 of 10,862 for speaker:Matt Carthy

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Carbon Sequestration and Storage in Agriculture: Discussion (17 Nov 2021)

Matt Carthy: Does Mr. Callanan see this being a significant part of the agri-environmental scheme in the next CAP? Will it be an agri-environmental scheme or eco-scheme?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Carbon Sequestration and Storage in Agriculture: Discussion (17 Nov 2021)

Matt Carthy: I will move on because I know there are other speakers. I thank Mr. Callanan for that answer. The targets in the climate action plan suggest that forestry can remove 0.8 Mt of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2030 and 2.1 Mt of reductions post 2030, in forestry that was planted before 2030. What area of planting per year is that based on?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Carbon Sequestration and Storage in Agriculture: Discussion (17 Nov 2021)

Matt Carthy: From 2021?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Carbon Sequestration and Storage in Agriculture: Discussion (17 Nov 2021)

Matt Carthy: It does not include 2020.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Carbon Sequestration and Storage in Agriculture: Discussion (17 Nov 2021)

Matt Carthy: That is probably an understatement.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Carbon Sequestration and Storage in Agriculture: Discussion (17 Nov 2021)

Matt Carthy: We would be lucky to hit 2,000 ha this year.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Carbon Sequestration and Storage in Agriculture: Discussion (17 Nov 2021)

Matt Carthy: We are missing the target by 6,000 ha. Some 14,000 ha next year will not fully make up for it, and it will take more the further we go. In truth, those targets are meaningless, since we will not reach them.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Carbon Sequestration and Storage in Agriculture: Discussion (17 Nov 2021)

Matt Carthy: We had it last year too.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Carbon Sequestration and Storage in Agriculture: Discussion (17 Nov 2021)

Matt Carthy: Has Mr. Moore a table that would suggest, if we reached 2,000 ha or 3,000 ha this year, what it would take in subsequent years to make up to reach this?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Carbon Sequestration and Storage in Agriculture: Discussion (17 Nov 2021)

Matt Carthy: That was, unfortunately, the answer that I expected. Mr. Moore mentioned the woodland environmental scheme, where private companies pay landowners an additional €1,000 per hectare to plant native trees. About 22% of the afforestation that took place last year was from that, so it is sizable. What proportion of the outstanding licence backlog is made up of woodland environmental fund...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Carbon Sequestration and Storage in Agriculture: Discussion (17 Nov 2021)

Matt Carthy: I thank the witnesses for being here and for the opening statement. I do not know if they had an opportunity to listen to our discussion with the departmental officials but one of the areas I was trying to explore - and Mr. Spink touched on this quite a bit in his opening statement - was that of establishing a baseline to understand and audit the full carbon footprint of our land use. I...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Carbon Sequestration and Storage in Agriculture: Discussion (17 Nov 2021)

Matt Carthy: Before Dr. Lanigan comes in, therein lies a major problem. We know the best way of encouraging farmers to do something is if they can see a direct benefit in their own water quality or their own land. We hear all these discussions about national herds and all that. In a sense we actually have tens of thousands of individual farms and the only way we can make a difference is if people are...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Carbon Sequestration and Storage in Agriculture: Discussion (17 Nov 2021)

Matt Carthy: This is the crucial point. Deputy Flaherty talked about how he always took great pride and value in his hedgerows whereas his neighbours might not necessarily have done so. Let us say a farmer decides to diversify to a more sustainable type of farming and to increase his or her hedgerows or carry out other carbon sequestration measures on their land. Unless we can say there is going to be...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Carbon Sequestration and Storage in Agriculture: Discussion (17 Nov 2021)

Matt Carthy: I apologise, will Dr. Lanigan repeat the last part?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Carbon Sequestration and Storage in Agriculture: Discussion (17 Nov 2021)

Matt Carthy: All right.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Carbon Sequestration and Storage in Agriculture: Discussion (17 Nov 2021)

Matt Carthy: I thank Professor O'Connor. We need to do a little bit of work on it. I am conscious of the time. We were talking about afforestation earlier. The Teagasc opening statement mentions that " if afforestation rates were to continue at current rates (or up to 3,500 ha per annum) [which would actually be a big improvement on current rates], the forest sink sequestration rate would be less...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Carbon Sequestration and Storage in Agriculture: Discussion (17 Nov 2021)

Matt Carthy: Mr. Spink can be honest here. He is among friends. There is nothing to say he cannot tell the Government it is talking through its hat.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Carbon Sequestration and Storage in Agriculture: Discussion (17 Nov 2021)

Matt Carthy: That is because the forest is not going to be planted.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Carbon Sequestration and Storage in Agriculture: Discussion (17 Nov 2021)

Matt Carthy: It could be said the Department is doing its bit on that given the licencing system it has at the moment, though I do not know if that is its intention. This is obviously very serious because this is to make up a big part of our commitment under LULUCF and is part of the climate action plan. Thus, in all reality, with the best management in place do the witnesses see a scenario given the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Carbon Sequestration and Storage in Agriculture: Discussion (17 Nov 2021)

Matt Carthy: That will have an impact on the post-2030 figures.