MINISTER FOR Agriculture Brendan Smith was yesterday taken to task by his Cabinet colleague John Gormley over comments that climate change must not damage Irish agriculture.
Mr Gormley, the Minister for the Environment, said he was "very surprised" to learn of a speech delivered by Mr Smith in which he argued against reducing cattle numbers to help Ireland meet the EU target of a 20 per cent reduction in emissions by 2020.
In a speech at a conference organised by Teagasc, Mr Smith pointed to agriculture contributing 27 per cent of all greenhouse emissions in Ireland, a much higher percentage than other EU countries. Most of this comes from methane produced from cattle.
Abatement measures such as a change in diet for cattle will achieve reductions of 4 per cent. Achieving the required targets is therefore likely to involve reductions in the cattle herd.
But Mr Smith yesterday argued that reducing cattle numbers would make no sense as Irish beef would be replaced by beef from other countries.
"If we cut our cattle numbers, our beef would simply be replaced on world markets by beef produced in a much less sustainable way - actually making the global climate change situation worse," he said.
Mr Gormley responded by saying that while he has always said it will be difficult to reach the targets, no special pleading could be made by any sector.
The Green Party leader said that if Ireland does fall short of its targets, the rising price of carbon credits will invariably lead to enormous costs that Ireland simply could not afford.
He said the Government's sub-committee on climate change, which met this week, had strongly underlined the view that reductions needed to be made in every sector.
"The only way is to cut domestic emissions and I'm glad to say that there's a realisation about that. We had a good meeting of the climate change committee and the French presidency [of the European Union] wants to go ahead with a deal [that pushes for 30 per cent reductions by 2020]," he said.
"There is no free lunch. We have to deal with the reality. Nobody has suggested at any stage that there will be reduction in the herd. We have looked for reductions in emissions and how we can increase the carbon sinks," said Mr Gormley.
