Measures to cut greenhouse gases will have to be frontloaded to meet targets

Environment Minister Eamon Ryan said his Government partners understand tough action will be required to halve overall emissions by 2030. 

Measures to reduce greenhouse gases will have to be frontloaded if Ireland is to meet legally binding targets, the Green Party leader has warned.

Eamon Ryan, who is locked into talks on the level of carbon cuts agriculture will have to make by 2030, has insisted the target will have to be higher than the 22% farmers say is as far as they can go.

Asked about his Government colleagues in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael who have come out strongly against setting the target at more than 22%, Mr Ryan said a functioning government allows backbenchers to express views, adding the coalition is "not a prison where you can't say a word".

However, he said his Government partners understand tough action will be required to halve overall emissions by 2030.

"We work well with our Government colleagues, they realise in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael that we have to play our part. We're not going to opt-out from climate action. We did that for too long, we have a lost decade, that makes it harder, we have to catch up for some of the emissions reductions that weren't delivered.

"Are we going to say we in Ireland are going to opt out of taking action on climate change while Spain burns, and while India was 50C earlier in the spring? You can't do this, you have to play your part, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil know that," he said.

Talks between Mr Ryan and Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue earlier this week failed to come up with a target for agriculture, but the Green Party leader insisted that agreement can be reached before Cabinet meets next week.

We will have to go further than 22%, I am not going to go into discussion on the kind of figures here.

"It's not easy, but actually I think agriculture has a better route because in switching to anaerobic digestion, we can pay farmers for producing our own gas. The European Commission this November will introduce a regulation which pays for storage of carbon — that could be in forestry or could be in the field, carbon farming, and I believe there's real opportunity."

Mr Ryan said the level of measures introduced in the next two and a half years will dictate whether Ireland meets its overall carbon reductions targets

"We all, collectively, have to play our part but it won't be done if putting all the blame or the emphasis on the consumer or all on the individual farmer, it's changing the system.

"The first concern is the increasing evidence that our planet is burning, that we are at real risk, and as the secretary general of the United Nations said we have to act, otherwise it would be a collective suicide mission if we don't change so we have to make this shift," he said.

"My focus is on what can we do in the next two and a half years. If we can really kick in [measures] in the next two and a half years, then towards the latter part of this decade we'll see those numbers fall. If we make the right decisions now we will see our emissions falling dramatically towards the latter part of this decade."

Mr Ryan's comments come as the latest report from the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) showed Ireland's emissions rose by almost 5% last year compared to 2020 and are now 1.1% above 2019 pre-Covid restriction levels.

The EPA report found that two-fifths of emissions are coming from agriculture.

Mr Ryan blamed the increased use of Moneypoint coal-fired power station in Co Clare for the rise in emissions last year.

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