Another week, another biased climate change “report” full of partial truths and misdirections from a vested interest group.
Last Wednesday the Irish Co-operative Organisation Society (ICOS) launched a report [Note 1] stating “Every litre of milk produced in Ireland is the most carbon efficient in Europe” The report, goes on to say “this provides a distinct competitive advantage for Irish dairy farmers, which must be underpinned by a strategy to ensure dairying is sustainable and economically successful over coming years.
John Gibbons, An Taisce’s Climate Change Committee spokesperson states “Yet again a fawning Government, uncritical media and even the the Chair of the Climate Change Advisory Council (CCAC) are drawn into publicising this report. Does objectivity or accuracy count in Ireland’s apparently increasing institutional inability to judge information and bias?”
Here are the basic facts: Total Irish agriculture sector emissions are rising again [Note 2 & 3] because an industry-led expansion, rubber-stamped by Government, means more cattle are consuming more concentrates and heavily fertilised grass, boosted by ever more imported feeds and fertiliser. No mitigation of total emissions has been achieved by agriculture and none is planned.
As cover for the massive, ongoing expansion of the Irish dairy sector, ICOS, the Irish Cooperative Organisation Society, has just published a report from a committee comprised solely of industry representatives. No independent scientists, no independent climate change or food security experts, and no civil society representatives to balance, challenge or even dissent from the final output – except when it came to the press release – then Prof Fitzgerald was introduced.
This is a public relations document squarely aimed at actively avoiding regulation of a vested industry’s own production and pollution opposing the recommendations [Note 4 & 5] of the Climate Change Advisory Council, government financial guidelines, and most recently the Citizens’ Assembly which also explicitly recognised the need for levies on greenhouse gas pollution.
It is no surprise though that ICOS, an industry body, rules out taxes on its sector’s own pollution and proposes no control on its total emissions. It is worthy of public concern though when public servants and those entrusted to give impartial advice are seen to lend such ready support to a vested interest proposing climate inaction, in fact action to increase climate pollution without penalty.
Six days after the Taoiseach acknowledged Ireland’s status as a laggard nation on climate action [Note6] this industry PR proposing even more climate inaction is deemed worthy of the endorsement signified by the attendance of the Minister of Agriculture, and also from the head of what is supposed to be an independent advisory body on climate mitigation.
It is also instructive that the ICOS, when researching their document, somehow failed to notice research, commissioned by the European Parliament [Note 7] which found that Ireland had the highest level of greenhouse gas emissions per euro of agricultural output across the entire 28 member states. This is a truly shocking statistic, one of many that have been airbrushed from this glossy presentation from ICOS.
Regarding the ICOS document, many of its misleading statements, myths, misdirections and partial truths have already been thoroughly addressed in Not So Green: Debunking the Myths Around Irish Agriculture from the Stop Climate Chaos and the Environmental Pillar [Note 8]. Interestingly, the release of Not So Green did not occasion any warm welcome by Government departments, agencies, or media.
The ICOS document is riddled with misdirections and partial facts that enable false narratives, yet our government departments and public agencies repeatedly seem unwilling to challenge them. In fact:
- The mitigation potential of Irish agriculture is high, if a different, low carbon transition pathway is planned by and for farmers [Note 9]. If the only future considered is cattle and business-as-usual, then – as well as low prices and economic insecurity – farmers are being left vulnerable to inevitable climate regulation and climate impacts.
- Contrary to ICOS and the Climate Change Advisory Council, the global warming effect of methane does not instantly disappear after one or 12 years, there is in fact a multi-decadal additive effect that must be accounted [Note 10]. The EPA has a responsibility to confirm this.
- The Irish beef and dairy industry is primarily for export and profits the powerful large food processors most of all. Tillage farmers particularly, and small farmers everywhere, are being unfairly pushed to supply cheap inputs to the processors, yet lead farming organisations promote this unfairness to rural Ireland. Why?
- Irish dairy efficiency has been little changed for the last 12 years [see Note 11], therefore any increase in cattle numbers or feed increases emissions, as it is doing. Growing the current dairy herd by more than 50%, adding half a million more cattle, is simply increasing dairy emissions by over 50%.
- Irish agriculture negatively impacts global food security [Note 12] by wastefully using fertiliser, feed and land to feed cattle and sheep rather than reserving them for food going directly to human consumption, food with vastly lower net impacts than beef and dairy. In Ireland, only 16% of cereal is directly for food, 80% goes wastefully to feed livestock first. [Note 13]
- The fodder crisis in the west and mid-west underlines Irish agriculture’s acute vulnerability to climate-fueled weather extremes. The only long term solution is to reduce the contributors to global warming in which agriculture’s emissions play a very significant role Ordinary taxpayers cannot be expected to bail out agriculture from crises of its own making.
Ireland has agreed to meet EU targets based on reducing combined agriculture, transport, heating and small industry emissions compared to the 2005 level. Both agriculture emissions and transport are instead rising fast, agriculture is now over the 2005 level [Note 14].
John Gibbons, An Taisce’s Climate Change Committee spokesperson states ”This Misleading Irish Dairy Sector ‘Report’ is Climate Inaction in Action. Climate action has to mean acting responsibly in line with what the science demands. Instead Ireland is ramping up climate polluting activities. Agriculture is not alone in denying its responsibilities – transport, industry and finance must also act on climate.”
John Gibbons continued “Our institutions – government, agencies, academia and media – have to take their moral, legal and intergenerational responsibilities seriously – An Taisce urges them to do so. Anything less is a gross dereliction of duty, deeply immoral and further erodes public trust.“
Notes
- ICOS website http://bit.ly/2FncIlk Irish Times report http://bit.ly/2rHovJv
- EPA Press Release 27/11/2017 Action needed as greenhouse gas emissions increase http://www.epa.ie/newsandevents/news/pressreleases2017/name,63280,en.html
- An Taisce Press Release 27/11/2017 – EPA Climate Change figures climb again – No political will in sight http://www.antaisce.org/articles/epa-climate-change-figures-climb-again-no-political-will-in-sight
- CCAC reports all endorse strong and coherent carbon pricing; Department of Public and Expenditure and Reform The Public Spending Code: E. Technical References Shadow Price of Carbon;
- Citizens Assembly recommendations https://www.citizensassembly.ie/en/How-the-State-can-make-Ireland-a-leader-in-tackling-climate-change/ see Recommendation 11.
- RTE, Will Goodbody (20 Jan 2018) Why are we still sleeping through climate change wake-up calls? https://www.rte.ie/news/2018/0120/934787-climate-change-threat/
- European Parliament, 2017. Research for AGRI Committee – Policy support for productivity vs. sustainability in EU agriculture: Towards viable farming and green growth. See Figure 5.
- Stop Climate Chaos, Environmental Pillar (2016) Not So Green: Debunking the Myths Around Irish Agriculture Summary: http://bit.ly/2Eg7ubV Full report: http://www.stopclimatechaos.ie/download/pdf/not_so_green.pdf
- Donnellan, T. Hanrahan, K., Breen, J.P. And Gillespie, P. (2013) Climate Change and Agricultural Policy Coherence: Agricultural Growth and GHG Emissions in Ireland. https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aesc13/158853.html
- Garnett T, et al. (2017) Grazed and Confused Food Climate Research Network, Oxford. See pp. 76-80.
- GHG efficiency of production measuring litres of milk per kg of methane emitted based on CSO and EPA figures to 2016. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document.html?reference=IPOL_STU(2017)585905
- Doyle, C (2016) Feeding the World Sustainably? – An Analysis of Irish and EU Food Nutrition Trade Balances http://bit.ly/2tuMKea
- Retweet of Simon Kustenmaccher https://twitter.com/swimsure/status/956807748628504576
- Based on 2016 EPA figures, and preliminary 2017 fertiliser and cattle figures from the EPA and CSO.
ENDS
For further information, contact:
John Gibbons, An Taisce Climate Change Committee: +353 87 233 2689
Charles Stanley-Smith, Communications, An Taisce. Tel: +353 87 241 1995
email: publicaffairs@antaisce.org
An Taisce The National Trust for Ireland
www.antaisce.org
Notes
About An Taisce
An Taisce is a charity that works to preserve and protect Ireland’s natural and built heritage. We are an independent charitable voice for the environment and for heritage issues. We are not a government body, semi-state or agency. Founded in 1948, we are one of Ireland’s oldest and largest environmental organisations.
