THE NEXT GOVERNMENT wants to advocate for an international change to how methane emissions from livestock are calculated.

The measure is included in the Programme for Government published yesterday by Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Regional Independents, which climate experts have criticised as failing to recognise the depth and urgency of the climate crisis.

The prospective government wants to “recognise the distinct characteristics of biogenic methane, as described by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and advocate for the accounting of this greenhouse gas to be re-classified at EU and international level”.

Biogenic methane is the greenhouse gas that is produced by livestock and contributes significantly to the emissions from Ireland’s agriculture sector.

Changing how it is accounted for in greenhouse gas inventories could potentially make it politically easier for the agriculture sector to move towards its targets on paper without actually making as much of a reduction in the physical emissions that it produces.

The PfG also wants to “complete a review of greenhouse gas emissions on a consumption basis, with a goal of ensuring that Irish and EU actions support the reduction of global emissions, as well as on our own territories”.

Normally, at an international level, emissions are attributed to a particular country based on where they are first produced. A consumption basis would attribute it not to which country produces the emissions but to the country that uses the product or service that resulted.

This type of model can be useful for considering the historical differences and inequality between developed and developing countries – for instance, to take into account how China’s high emissions are partly driven by the enormous demand from western countries for products.

However, in an Irish context, applying a consumption basis to measuring emissions could mean that the agriculture sector could be somewhat absolved of its responsibility for emissions linked to beef and dairy that it exports abroad. Meanwhile, other types of emissions attributed to Ireland would actually increase in sectors where we import more than what we make for ourselves.

The Journal asked press officers for Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Regional Independents to expand on what those two measures, which are both contained in the ‘Protecting our environment’ chapter of the PfG, would entail and what the goals of them are.

A spokesperson for Fianna Fáil responded: “To summarise, these measures are to protect our agricultural sector while decreasing our emissions at the same time.”

The other groups have not responded.

Climate commentator John Gibbons described such moves as attempts to appear to the agriculture sector to be giving it “get-out-of-jail-free cards” and said that the PfG’s interpretation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is “so disingenuous”.

Methane emissions

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a United Nations-led body of scientists that produces extensive scientific reports about climate change.

“The IPCC uses a system to assess the warming potential of greenhouse gases. Methane has a Global Warming Potential over 100 years that is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide [known as its GWP100],” Gibbons explained, speaking to The Journal.

“Methane is a shorter acting gas than CO2, so it tends to disperse from the atmosphere more quickly,” Gibbons said, adding: “Agricultural interests are trying to use this fact – which applies to both agricultural methane and every other methane – to say it isn’t as big a threat from a global warming point of view. This alternate way of counting methane, which is called GWP*, is not adopted by the IPCC. It has been proposed to it and it has been enthusiastically talked up by groups like the Irish Farmers’ Association.

“The key and critical thing here to understand is that this system says that if you’ve got a steady stream of methane and then you reduce it, the removal of the warming effect is much more dramatic than is given credit for under the IPCC system – and that’s what the Irish Farmers’ Association and company are focusing on, but they’re misinterpreting the data, because the flip side of it is that if you even slightly increase methane, you get a huge global warming effect.

“So, what they’re saying is, oh, ‘if we’re stable or reducing, it goes down’, which is correct, but we’re not. What they’re trying to do is to look at a different way of calculating, but only looking at one side of it – the side where methane is going down. But if you take that GWP* set of calculations and apply it to the Irish situation, it would suggest that our methane impacts are actually far worse than the IPCC would calculate,” Gibbons said.

“If you’re going to do that, you better be fully committed to methane reduction forever. You can never increase methane. That’s what the data says… I’ve yet to see a rural Independent TD say we’re advocating for GWP* star and so the era of methane expansion through dairy expansion and livestock expansion is permanently over.”

‘More than I was expecting – but I wasn’t expecting much’

The reaction from environmentalists to the Programme for Government is largely one of disappointed but there’s also a sense that it is not quite as bad as they feared.

UCD Professor Cara Augustenborg’s assessment of the PfG is that its commitments on climate action “aren’t adequate”. 

“There is more than I was expecting in there but, based on manifestos, I wasn’t expecting much,” said Professor Augustenborg, who is a member of the Climate Change Advisory Council that is tasked with advising the government on climate matters.

“On transport, energy and waste, I think they understand the environmental challenges more than they have historically and have lots of measures to respond. Not so in water, nature and agriculture though, which have lots of mixed messages,” she said. 

Friends of the Earth chief executive Oisín Coghlan likened the programme to the coalition wanting to have its cake and eat it too – that is, “having the established climate targets in there but wanting your pollution too”, he said.

“The programme reflects and accepts the law of the land by affirming the Government’s commitment to the 51% emissions reduction by 2030, net-zero by 2050 at the latest, and an annual Climate Action Plan. That’s all in the 2021 Climate Act,” Coghlan said.

“What’s worrying is that the Programme doesn’t contain enough specific concrete actions to deliver the required reductions.” 

Some of the items contained in the programme could be problematic for Ireland’s climate and energy landscape, like continuing data centre expansion.

Rose Wall, the CEO of the Community Law and Mediation’s Centre for Environmental Justice, said that measures in the plan like support for data centres and lifting the Dublin Airport passenger cap could further undermine efforts to remain within the carbon budgets could further undermine efforts to remain within the carbon budgets

“The Programme for Government speaks of  ‘ambitious targets’ and ‘decisive action’ to lower greenhouse gas emissions and reduce Ireland’s reliance on fossil fuels, yet it absolves the parties involved of accountability for ensuring Ireland meets its legal obligations on emissions reductions,” Wall said.

Another area of concern for climate activists is that this PfG has not included a pledge that was made in the 2020 programme for government which committed to a 2:1 ratio of spending on public transport in comparison to roads.

Karen Ciesielski of Environmental Pillar said that the “concentration on roads in the programme for government is a retrograde step which will only lead to increased car use, congestion and rising emissions”.

However, it appears that some political rhetoric by rural TDs that suggested measures which the Green Party had prioritised in the last government, like cycle lanes, could now be done away with was overblown.

The PfG pledges to invest in dedicated infrastructure for walking and cycling and other active travel measures, including offering a bike scheme for third-level students similar to the bike-to-work scheme.