To shift in our favour

consumption of carbonefficient food, and a policy that counts carbon where it is consumed rather than where it is produced might well achieve this.

So, how would a consumption-based carbon accounting policy work? In essence, the carbon associated with food production would be exported with the food product and a border carbon adjustment would be applied.

The statistics on our food trade with the UK are oft-quoted recently in the context of Brexit. Taking our trading relationship with the UK as an example, approximately 40 pc of our beef exports go to the UK and therefore it could be estimated that 40pc of our carbon would also be exported there.

If the UK have a national carbon consumption quota, just as they currently have a national carbon production quota, then it should follow that consumers will demand food from carbonefficient food-producing countries like Ireland, and globally carbon emissions will decrease.

One may argue that a border carbon-adjustment policy is too complex, counterintuitive and impossible to police, but we need not cast our minds back too far to recall many complex and often counterintuitive agricultural policies, such as set-aside, extensification headage and even decoupling, that were in operation for many years.

Perhaps policymakers are not yet ready for the complexities of a border carbon-adjustment policy.

However, it is clear that we need a policy that allows agricultural output to grow in line with increasing food demand.

And in order to tackle climate change, we need global policies that allow this to happen in the most carbon-efficient manner.

Thia Hennessy is Professor and Head of Food Business and Development at University College Cork.