Any talk of a carbon tax has to be contextualised against emissions. ~35% of emissions comes from farming, set to rise to 40% in 2030.
Any talk of a carbon tax has to be contextualised against emissions. ~35% of emissions comes from farming, set to rise to 40% in 2030.
32 comments
Quite an interesting stat. We’re gonna have to eat more bean casseroles going forward chaps.
Is carbon tax not also charged to farms?
Currently energy used in the home is around 30% and transport is around 30%. This graph is showing what our emissions will look like if the current plans are achieved. Currently farming is around 30% too.
This is the point of the climate act, setting emissions limits for each sector.
https://www.climatecouncil.ie/carbonbudgets/
The Min, for Agriculture now has to set a plan to reduce emissions in the sector, and can be taken to court and have plans quoshed if they’re insufficient. Carbon taxes are part of the picture, in no sense are they the only tool.
It’s almost like farming is vitally important in sustaining human life
What about all the carbon that is offset by Agriculture? It’s the only industry lised that is anywhere near carbon neutral. Carbon credits should be introduced not taxes. I would happily change my farm enterprise and have all these industries that are happy to point at agriculture as the bad guys pay for it in credit. It might be interesting to see how much we end up paying for a weekly shop though.
So? Ireland is very efficient at dairy and beef farming due to our climate. We should continue this while focusing on increased carbon efficiency.
The world needs beef and dairy, at least until lab grown alternatives improve.
Whereas we can replace Moneypoint with nuclear or renewables + battery, we just choose not to.
I would have though farming could be one industry where they could make a real push towards electrification. I understand it would be expensive and wouldn’t work across the board but it would solve a number of problems in one move.
Farms could become little power production hubs, they have loads of organic material that can be used to produce gas and fertiliser, they have space for turbines and solar panels.
The big outlay would be replacing vehicles but once that’s done many larger farms might produce enough electricity to significantly reduce the cost of running them. If farms could cooperate they may be able to pool their bio resources for energy production at a more local level.
It’s going to take something major at this point. I think in the modern commercialised world we just don’t have the motivation to do it though.
As I see it most problem in the world today are caused by the commercial production of an abundance of products and all our solutions to fix the fall out from making too many products is to make more products in hope that the new products will counteract all the other products we’ve made.
At this stage it’s the Green Party making our lives miserable for the last few years of the planet while the millionaires laugh in USA and china
I would just mention for the non farming folk that this isn’t all cow farts. Farming consumes a huge amount of fuel as well as inorganic fertiliser which is derived from oil.
We should be reducing our meat production but be aware that isn’t the only issue.
I too love when people pull out a random pie chart without any context as to why most of our GNP is focused on agriculture. Globally 71 percent of carbon emissions are produced by 100 multinational corporations. But yes Ireland who produce 0.01 percent of global carbon emissions should destroy our economy and give ourselves another famine because vegans living in Dublin think they can personally do without burgers.
Honestly, people should be worrying about far more pressing issues, like everything getting too expensive…
Not much point of better environment if you are miserable?
Let’s be honest, a lot of “green” stuff is being done at the expense of general happiness / well being. Another tax? Great! Lol
Minister on the radio commenting that the carbon tax shall be ring-fenced to protect the most vulnerable, what’s included in this ring fencing: farm payments. Move along nothing to see here.
Do your part eat a cow a month.
Who ends up absorbing the CO2 emissions in Ireland?
Clue: back gardens aren’t really great.
If you don’t care for Irish farms and farmers, be some way principled and try living off windowsill lettuce instead.
So I come from a farming background. Could we do better? Yes. Is it possible with current circumstances? Absolutely not.
If farming is to be made carbon neutral it’ll need billions in investment. The technology exists it just needs to be bought and installed.
We can use wind turbines and solar panels to produce our own energy.
We can use electric systems, equipment and machinery to operate farms.
We can use tanks to store manure and harvest methane.
We can move towards organic farming methods and cut down on the use of fertilizers.
My farm is about 60-70 years old. It doesn’t have the infrastructure to manage all of this. This will also add to the cost.
The government will need to step in and provide for this. Farming isn’t a particularly profitable business for most except for some of the largest farmers. A 50 year old farmer won’t care about the 10 year ROI on green systems. He’s been doing it his way for the last 30 years and has no problem doing it for the next.
There’s also other barriers to progress. I think it’s coming up on 10 years now since we began the process of placing solar panels on our land. We’ve still not broken ground. The planning for any green projects is also broken even for those who do want to try their hands at progress.
Just to point out we still consume the food either way.
Whether we produce it or Brazil produces it has negligible effect on the GLOBAL emissions.
Cutting beef production just to meet OUR targets and offloading the problem through sleight of hand shows the cynical part of climate activism.
If we were being true with ourselves we would calculate the emissions of the food we eat, not the food we produce.
Op who’s the source for the infographic? Not denying its credibility, I’d just like to know who did the research for it since they’re not named on it.
Pffftttt, who needs agriculture
Is that graph Ireland or the whole EU?
Agriculture in Ireland has the lowest carbon emissions in the EU (we don’t have to use heating to keep animals warm in the winter or produce food for them or heat greenhouses etc.). If that chart is Ireland, the rest of the EU is much worse.
Really disappointing comments section on this topic. Clearly people are very quick to forget where their food actually comes from, and the unfortunate carbon impact of almost everything.
Some of the comments here are part of the reason why we rely so heavily on imported food stuffs as well as we we produce. Is their a section on the chart above about carbon offshoring of almonds, avocados or sunflower oil? ( to name but a few).
Farming causes a net emission of a number of carbon gases which are unavoidable. We should be aiming to reduce this by actually buying Irish and in season food if you actually care, rather than wanting to sound like you do. Eating tomatoes or apples in December or January is not being carbon conscious.
How do we clean up farming without reducing vital meat consumption ?
What if we powered our cars cow farts?
When do they invest into indoor scaled vertical farming with hydroponics, recycled water and renewable energy sources?
So we can stop buying small crops that can be grown here indoors and reduce import from abroad (using more emissions..)
Plenty could be skilled in a mega new industry, feed the country and provide for ourselves better. Use the facilities for school trips and show children where their food comes from..
Any millionaire r/Ireland reader dm me and let’s get this going lol
What about the carbon cycle and methane being recycled in farming? Methane may be worse than CO2 but it doesn’t last as long and breaks down.
where are the data centres?
In the meantime the Green Party:
Yes, let’s tax the shit out if the farmers so they can’t afford to buy newer equipment with more efficient emissions, that will encourage them to be more climate aware. Why should they make money, if they are polluting that much? 🤑
I like how any initiative of the greens is extremely painful and counter productive.
My favorite one that is the reality of Dublin:
Proposal:
Let’s fill the low density city of Dublin, in which it rains 200+ days a year with bike lanes. Also, let’s not give sustainable mass-transit solutions. This way people will favor bikes instead of cars.
Outcome:
Traffic jams, and cars burning energy on idle. Resulting in same levels of pollution, if not higher.
People should not look for ways to cut out emissions, but rather make transportation more efficient.
Example:
Romania has free parking everywhere for hybrid and electric vehicles + up to 12000€ grant for buying electric vehicles, and 6000€ grant for hybrids.
Spoiler alert: when they introduced grant in Ireland for electric vehicles, the price of a Nissan Leaf jumped overnight by the same amount.
Conclusion: this government is corrupt and incompetent.
I’d love to see a proper lifecycle assessment of grass fed beef, I’ve never managed to find a good one anywhere.
Cattle fertiliser replaces some ammonia fertiliser which should be considered “displaced emissions” and subtracted from the emissions of cattle rearing. Similarly, a biogas facility should also be considered to displace emissions.
Cattle improve the carbon sequestration of the land they graze on. Should also be subtracted.
The carbon cycle of CO2 -> grass -> CH4 -> C02 through cattle should be accounted for. Would only make a ~4% difference.
Should be a weighted value for the fact that methane has an atmospheric half life of around 9 years.
I read a study that said grain fed is more emissions friendly because the cows don’t live as long, therefore they don’t have the opportunity to belch as much. I find it hard to believe taking into account the factors above, as well as the emissions cost of importing grain which most countries do.
It might be a better idea to stop the importing of foodstuffs from across the globe, apples from New Zealand, tomatoes from Spain, lettuce from Netherlands etc . If we ate more home grown produce, and pay the growers properly it might encourage more farmers to change from livestock.
>Why don’t people realize that me driving to work everyday is *just as* important as farming????
Yep, talk of fast showers in the context of actual usage seems crazy. More paper straw arguments..
Irish agri emissions are not end user emissions