Focus on cutting herd numbers is 'too narrow' to cut emissions, says Taoiseach

Micheál Martin has clashed with Independent TD Danny Healy-Rae, who claimed that the Taoiseach is 'out there that you’re going to reduce the national herd'. Picture: Johanna Geron, Pool Photo via AP

Focusing on cutting herd numbers as the central aspect of reducing overall greenhouse gas emissions is "too narrow", and the conversation should be much broader than that, the Taoiseach has claimed.

Speaking in Clonmel ahead of the UN climate change event Cop26 in Glasgow next week, Micheál Martin pushed back on scientists' arguments that cattle numbers and the methane they produce are already too high, and are unsustainable if Ireland is to meet its 2030 target of a 51% reduction in emissions. 

Climate Change Advisory Council (CCAC) chairwoman Marie Donnelly warned earlier this week that Ireland will need to look “very seriously” at the country’s cattle herd in the years to come.

Beef and dairy cattle are among the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, with cows mainly generating methane through digestion and waste. 

Talks of a cut to the size of the herd have been met with fierce resistance from farming lobbyists, while Government figures have shied away from the politically-charged talk of doing so.

Mr Martin said: "One of the problems with Irish debate around climate change is that it always comes back to the herd, which is so narrow a prism to look at the climate change agenda. 

I know many people within the environmental world and the climate world really get frustrated at the degree to which the debate always narrows to agriculture and to the herd. It’s much broader than that. It impacts all aspects of society."

He pointed to new advances in agricultural technology in the coming years as a way of mitigating emissions. 

"There are many new technologies arriving on the scene that can help to us to reduce emissions; how we spread slurry, how we deal with nitrates and so on," Mr Martin said. 

"UCD and UCC are particularly strong on ag-tech and new technologies around agriculture. That is the future. New technologies arriving on the scene to help farmers and food producers more generally to produce less emissions. That is the context to which we are looking at this."

However, the CCAC has said that, as yet, advances in technology have not mitigated against methane emissions.

Ireland’s biogenic methane from cattle [and sheep] is very difficult to mitigate at present, as there are very few technologies available yet in Ireland or globally to reduce it," it said.

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