Written answers

Wednesday, 3 March 2021

Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment

Climate Change Policy

Photo of Carol NolanCarol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent)
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56. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the measures being taken by his Department to include 6% of hedgerows in calculations relating to carbon sequestration figures; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11051/21]

Photo of Eamon RyanEamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Greenhouse gas emissions and removals associated with Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) are reported in Ireland's greenhouse gas emissions inventory prepared by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and submitted annually to the EU and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. LULUCF includes activities associated with forestry, croplands, grasslands, wetlands, settlements and other lands. Hedgerows, as landscape features within the cropland and grassland categories can form part of the emissions and removal estimates for these land use categories. It is important to note that in line with international reporting guidelines, emissions and removals of greenhouse gases associated with land based activities are reported in a different category to those associated with agricultural activity, which are accounted for under the Effort Sharing Regulation. The LULUCF (Regulation (EU) 2018/841) has established the mechanisms whereby LULUCF activities, including forestry, are to be included in Member States emissions reduction targets for 2021 to 2030 under the Effort Sharing Regulation (Regulation (EU) 842/2018).

Data capture and measurement are core pillars for any accounting of carbon sequestration potential. As noted in the Climate Action Plan 2019, the biggest challenge in the data capture for Irish hedgerows is the quantification of the above and below ground biomass. To address the lack of data on the potential for hedgerow carbon sequestration, Teagasc has recently commenced a research project called “Farm-Carbon – Farm Hedgerows and Non-forest Woodland Carbon”. This project is due to be completed by the end of 2022. The overall objective of this project is to advance the understanding of the contribution of hedgerows and non-forest woodland to carbon stocks in agricultural landscapes, and to identify approaches to maintain and enhance this contribution. 

Finally, as part of the on-going EPA land-use mapping project, work is currently underway to bring together the various available spatial datasets so that full coverage of land-use features, including hedgerows, within the spatial land-use map can be derived. However, while the development of recent mapping capabilities will allow for the identification of landscape features such as hedgerows as they are currently, there are difficulties in assessing these features for historical years for which mapping capabilities and spatial datasets are less well developed. Information for past years is extremely important in the context of establishing change in land use and landscape features given that the base years for the LULUCF Regulation (Regulation 842/2018) are the 2005-2009 period.  

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