Why the climate mathematicians’ sums don’t add up on Irish beef

THE CURRENT system of calculating carbon emissions from agriculture discriminates against a food exporting country such as Ireland, and because it fails to encourage carbon-efficient food production, it is also harmful for our environment.

Even though 90pc of our beef is exported, Ireland is penalised for being the most carbon-efficient beef exporter within the EU because the climate rules state the responsibility for emissions is on the producer, rather than the consumer of our beef.

As a result, products from relatively carbon-efficient beef production in Ireland can be replaced throughout the EU with beef 35 times worse for the environment imported from the Amazon basin.

That seems to be okay according to some climate mathematicians, but it’s far from okay for the global climate because of something called carbon leakage.

Carbon leakage is the risk that if an industry, like the beef sector here, cuts carbon emissions, it finds itself replaced by more environmentally damaging producers elsewhere in the world, leading to a deterioration globally in our climate rather than an improvement.

This is an accepted concept at EU level when it comes to industry, but not agriculture.

We have an EU Common Agricultural Policy that regulates food production in Member States, except when it comes to climate emissions, where we have a national ceiling, not an EU ceiling. This completely undermines carbon-efficient food production in favour of cheap food, regardless of its climate impact or where it comes from.

What we need to see is an EU-wide methane cap for agriculture that supports carbon-efficient beef production, like that in Ireland, which is good for reducing global climate emissions.

There are other benefits of Ireland’s low-intensity grass-based farming such as a lower impact on soil erosion, biodiversity and nutrient leaching compared to other beef production models. This fact is conveniently ignored by those who focus on farming as the climate problem.

Grass-based systems on disadvantaged land types in much of Ireland remove carbon from the atmosphere and convert it into a human protein such as beef from marginal land that is not suitable for tillage crops.

That does not mean agriculture and farming should have a free pass.

Managing our land use better can take even more carbon dioxide out of our atmosphere, reducing its harmful effects on the climate and the oceans far quicker than just shutting down farming.

Unless we completely change our approach to calculating agricultural emissions then we will decimate the industry in Ireland, which will see Irish beef being replaced with a product from the other side of the world where its production is destroying our atmosphere and rainforests for the generations to come.

This is a lose-lose situation that we are facing unless we look again at the maths behind climate targets.

Irish beef is in a lose-lose situation unless we look again at the maths behind climate targets

Denis Naughten is an independent TD for Roscommon/Galway