The Taoiseach must now ensure Ireland follows through on the commitments he announced at the UN Climate Conference this afternoon, environmental expert Dr Cara Augustenborg has warned.

In his speech to the COP26 conference in Glasgow this afternoon, Micheál Martin told the world that Ireland had enacted a legally binding target of reducing emissions to 51% of 2018 levels by 2030.

He said the country would be climate neutral by 2050 and said Ireland would enact statutory carbon budgets for every sector of the economy to get there.

He also spoke up Ireland’s involvement in the EU's green transition and announced plans to more than double the country’s contributions to developing nations on the frontline of the climate crisis.

On The Hard Shoulder this evening, Dr Augustenborg noted that while the new legislation makes Ireland’s pledges stronger than many other nations, Micheál Martin is not the first Taoiseach to make big promises at UN conferences.

“The last Taoiseach that got to speak at one of these negotiations was Enda Kenny,” she said.

“He gave an equally nice speech about how urgent the climate crisis was and he got off the stage and went back to Irish journalists and said, basically, this doesn’t apply to Irish agriculture and don’t worry about it. So that was a big shock that hit the headlines.

“What they say on stage can be very different to what is actually done and it still remains to be seen. We can have all these targets but really the proof is in whether emissions actually reduce.

“Currently our emissions are not reducing in Ireland and until we actually see emissions start to go down it is very hard to claim credibility – but at least now we have some legislation which should help us in achieving that.”

Farming

Dr Augstenborg said Ireland needs “a systems change within our agricultural food production model” in order the meet our emissions targets.

“I know that is a hugely unpopular thing to say and I will be slated for saying it but that is the reality of the situation,” she said.

“It is very hard to address the kind of emissions reductions we need without also saying OK we will reduce inputs and as a result of reducing things like nitrogen fertiliser, the herd will naturally decline.

“But we can create other opportunities for farmers and that is where we really need leadership from Government and the agricultural community to say here are the things we could be doing instead.

Subsidies

We could be managing the land instead of necessarily intensifying beef or dairy and we could be getting paid for that.”

She said Government must bring forward a new system of agricultural subsidies to move Irish agriculture towards a more sustainable model.

“We need to come forward with other opportunities for farmers to earn a living,” she said.

“We subsidise agriculture quite heavily already so maybe instead of subsidising to create more animal-based products we could be subsidising for land management to turn our land – which is currently a source of emissions surprisingly – to turn it actually into a sink where it sequesters carbon and helps protect us from climate change.”

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