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Minister for Climate Eamon Ryan has agreed to significant changes to the Climate Action Bill, which recognise where carbon is removed or stored in agriculture.
This follows Mr Ryan’s acceptance of amendments proposed at committee stage in the Seanad on Friday. The carbon removal reference agreed to, in effect, recognises carbon removals by sequestration in farming, including storage of CO2 in soils, hedgerows and forestry.
Consequently, this will have to be considered in setting five-yearly carbon budgets and in setting legally binding sector limits to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
This means as well as counting polluting emissions the Government will count “removals”, that is to say land-use change that absorbs pollution, when measuring compliance with the carbon budgets and sectoral emissions ceilings that will be adopted under the law.
Farmers have claimed repeatedly their contribution to sequestration is not sufficiently acknowledged in national-emissions accounting.
The main amendment was proposed by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Senators, who confirmed it emerged from discussions with farming bodies. The key change adds “minus removals” to the definition of a carbon budget.
Stop Climate Chaos environmental group wrote to Senators outlining its concerns that the amendment “threatens to undermine the scientific veracity of the greenhouse gas accounting mechanisms that underpin the carbon budgeting approach”. The amendment “could undermine or further obscure climate action in the agricultural sector”, it added.
Proposing the main amendment, Senator Tim Lombard (FG) said it gives due recognition to carbon sequestration in agriculture and would be seen as an acknowledgement of farming community efforts to reduce their carbon footprint and willingness to do more. Having farmers on board was critical, he added, as farming was the only sector that could remove and store carbon.
Independent Senator Alice-Mary Higgins warned of the dangers from blending emission cuts and carbon sequestration figures because of the risk of “double counting”. It was for this reason that the EU Climate Law required they be separated, she noted.
Mr Ryan said he wanted to encourage use of carbon sinks, especially in agriculture, and underlined the amendment “does not remove the need to reduce emissions”.
The “blaming and shaming” of farmers on their emissions had to stop, he added. He underlined, however, the sector would have to reduce its methane, nitrous oxide and ammonia emissions, and not just pursue sequestration and use of carbon sinks. “It will have to be both,” he said.
The Minister expected he would be having hard but productive negotiations with Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue on this in coming months. The sector could not pursue big expansion in production with yet more chemical fertiliser use and slurry, “where land and water quality take the hit”, he warned.
There was “huge income potential” for farmers in rewetting land, bringing back biodiversity and storing carbon. But a review of land use was necessary, backed by science and deploying UN measurement systems. This would take time before farmers could be fully rewarded for pursing nature-based solutions.
In response to sustained criticism that the Bill was deficient on climate justice commitments, reflected in the absence of a detailed definition of “a just transition” as Ireland decarbonises, Mr Ryan insisted it fulfils the requirement for a just transition.
The definition was consistent with the Paris Agreement and UN Framework Convention on Climate Change including their obligations internationally, he said.
IFA reaction
He accepted, however, an amendment proposed by Senator Higgins to reinforce that position by deleting what she referred to as “negative language”. This deletes the proposed definition of climate justice in the Bill.
Trócaire, Concern, Oxfam and Christian Aid had written to the leaders of the three Coalition parties to express dismay at how narrow the proposed definition was and called for its improvement or removal.
Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) president Tim Cullinan welcomed the carbon budget amendments “which gives full recognition for carbon removals as part of the carbon budgets and sectoral targets”.
“IFA has been lobbying intensively for three amendments to the Bill . . . In fairness to the Fine Gael and Fianna Fail Senators, amendments were put down and followed up, which have now been accepted by the Government,” he said.
Friends of the Earth director Oisín Coghlan said he was concerned the amendments to count removals as well as emissions in carbon budgeting process “will encourage the IFA to continue to mislead its members on climate action”.
He added: “Despite today’s vote there are a number of inescapable truths the farm leaders have to reckon with. Polluting emissions from agriculture have to start coming down, immediately and substantially. There are not enough removals to avoid having to reduce polluting emissions and there never will be.
“Removals will be calculated on scientifically strict UN criteria, and at the moment our land is a net emitter of pollution, rather than absorbing pollution. I hope good land use planning will change that and our forests, peatlands and soils will indeed absorb more pollution than they emit in the future.”