Ireland faces battle to cut farming’s CO2 footprint

Irish farming has a big battle to win at EU level following agreement on greenhouse gas emissions at the Paris climate change conference, Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney said.

Ireland has accepted the EU target of cutting its emissions by 40% by 2030, knowing the country’s burden was and would be an issue, he said.

Emissions, especially from the country’s national herd amount to 42% of the non-tradable greenhouse gas emissions, and this is the highest in the world after New Zealand.