Carbon credits to rewet Ireland's bogs?

A carbon crediting scheme may play a vital role in rewetting Irelnad's peatlands.

Farmed peatland will be one of the fiercest battlegrounds in the climate action debate.

Early interpretations of the EU’s proposed nature restoration laws indicate up to 210,000 hectares of drained and farmed peatlands in Ireland may yet have to be rewetted.

Steadfast landowner opposition to such a course of action is emerging.

Could this opposition be overcome by a carbon crediting scheme of payments for ecosystem services through peatland restoration?

Such a system, potentially including low-impact carbon-friendly farming, has been proposed by the EU-funded INTERREG Carbon Connects project of partners from the Netherlands, France, Belgium, UK and Ireland.

Their carbon crediting scheme, or a version of it, may yet play a vital role on Ireland’s 337,000 hectares of managed pasture on drained peat soils. This area estimate comes from Teagasc, which says the area is calculated to emit about 9.6 Mt of carbon dioxide equivalent.

These emissions are so high, that grassland as a whole in Ireland is deemed to be a source of emissions.

The 3.9m hectares of grassland on mineral soils are not a source of emissions. Instead, they are estimated in the national inventory to sequester about 2 Mt of CO2 equivalent, by capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and storing it in plant material or soil. When that is subtracted from the 9.6 Mt from drained peat soils, Irish grassland is calculated to emit about 7.6 Mt (in 2021), overall.

In other words, the high emissions from drained peat more than negate carbon removals by the 10 times larger area of mineral soils.

So drained peatlands are inevitably targeted in the drive to reduce emissions from the agriculture sector 25% (or by 5.75 Mt of CO2e) by 2030. However, these peatlands may come under the Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry heading (LULUCF) rather than agriculture.

LULUCF reduction targets between 37% and 58% range are expected, but not yet decided.

That decision is deferred, pending emergence of new scientific knowledge, with large scientific uncertainties still associated with measurement of emissions and removals.

'Uncertainties'

Resolving “uncertainties” is being tackled by organisations such as the National Agricultural Soil Carbon Observatory, which will measure carbon dioxide and methane at about 30 sites nationwide. Soil carbon is also being measured nationwide.

Investigation is also needed of the drainage status of agricultural peat soils. The results will help to determine how to reduce CO2 emissions from grassland on peat soils, which is generally done by raising the water table, but not flooding.

Needless to say, the impact on farmers’ incomes must be carefully assessed, as part of the Government’s commitment to ensure nobody is left behind in the move to a climate-neutral economy and society.

Climate action on farmed peatlands is a long way off, but it now hangs over landowners who perceive it as a threat to their life’s work.

Their plight was described recently in Dáil Éireann by the independent TD for Roscommon-Galway, Michael Fitzmaurice, who said rewettng ground that farmers have spent years trying to farm will not be accepted. He said, “What has been proposed would make Cromwell blush”.

“No EU diktat and no Government minister in Dublin will decide our private property rights, decide how we will farm our land, or take us off land that we have drained, looked after and reared families on down through the years”.

During a very heated debate, Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan, replied that the EU nature restoration law, as proposed, seeks to repair European habitats that are in poor condition and bring back nature to all ecosystems.

“One thing I believe to be absolutely true is that it is in all our interests to stop the destruction of the natural world which has occurred over the past 50 or 60 years”.

He said it will be accepted “if we can, in restoring nature, provide an income to a new generation of farmers, foresters and people to look after the natural world”.

He confirmed his support for EU Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries Virginijus Sinkevičius’s nature restoration proposals.

Potential harm to Irish farms

All the Irish farmer organisations oppose the proposals.

The IFA said, “These proposals are extremely ambitious and would remove significant areas of land from active agricultural production. The effect on farmers and the wider rural community needs to be better understood before legally binding targets are introduced.”

The ICMSA said new regulations are impacting on “the practical realities of farming in Ireland, and undermining farmers’ ability to earn a reasonable return”.

ICSA said it is extremely concerned about the potential harm to Irish farms. “Farmers are extremely anxious that their farms will be decimated in terms of production and the value of their land destroyed, particularly as a consequence of possible re-wetting demands”.

According to the Carbon Connects project, farmers could be rewarded by a carbon crediting scheme for peatland that could unlock new private sector funds for rewetting, restoration, and sustainable management.

Carbon Connects says that peatlands store more than twice the carbon stored in all forests, and it is emitted after peatlands are “degraded”, accounting for 6% of all human carbon emissions (more than the shipping and aviation industries combined).

Restoration stops emissions, but is costly. So external funding is needed, which could make sustainable peatland farming economically viable.

It is proposed that funding comes from carbon credits sold by landowners for rewetting, corresponding to the emissions reduction, and farmers can also get income from sustainable farming on rewetted peatland, such as growing alder, cattails, reeds, sphagnum moss, or rearing water buffalo.

This has worked well in other EU states, according to Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics research associate Niall Ó Brolcháin.

Farming on rewetted bog can be lucrative

He told a recent Oireachtas committee that Peatland Code credits sell in the UK for €20 to €30 per tonne of carbon not emitted, but Moor Futures credits sell for about €80 in Germany, and Valuta voor Veen credits in the Netherlands for €70.

He also explained how farming on rewetted bog can be lucrative. “Carbon farms just sell credits, and make sure that growth of sphagnum and other types of peatland plants occurs, and that it becomes a natural peatland.

“A sphagnum farm harvests a level of sphagnum sustainably, and is highly lucrative as a farming method, as it can be sold as a substitute for moss peat.

“I recently visited a sphagnum farm in Germany, and they were selling it when it was harvested for €16,000 per ha [for three to five years of growth].

“Peatlands are probably the biggest opportunity we have to make quick gains in reducing CO2 and carbon equivalent emissions.” 

He said there are high emissions from degraded and drained peatlands in Ireland, but they could be reduced to net zero by 2030, by restoration and rewetting.

“There is too much emphasis on cows, and we are missing the bigger picture.

“We are already seeing large pension funds beginning to buy up a lot of peatlands, for example, because they know what is coming at a European and global level, and they are planning ahead. I would far prefer to see local communities benefiting, rather than large multinational finance houses.”

Verification is key

In carbon credit schemes, verification is the key. “If it cannot be verified, the danger in Ireland is if we allow this to continue, we will get a very bad reputation because we will be selling things that cannot be verified”.

Mr Ó Brolcháin, who is a lecturer at the University of Galway, said regional government set up carbon credits in Germany, and France recently set up a national framework. But Ireland does not have a framework in place.

Carbon credit schemes tend to work in partnership with Government and trusted local organisations.

“At the moment, there are a number of people at an academic level setting up schemes in Ireland or looking at the potential of doing that. Those need to be supported and encouraged.”

“We need proper verification, and Government to take a hand in this, and not just to leave it to the private sector or academia.”