Letters to the Editor: Ireland not sharing full picture of greenhouse gas emissions

This under-reporting could have a significant impact on Ireland’s climate targets, as nitrous oxide produced by the use of nitrogen fertilizer is a major greenhouse gas that is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

I am writing to express my concern about the recent revelation that Ireland has been under-reporting its greenhouse gas emissions.

A letter received by our organisation last week from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Climate Action (DG CLIMA) director general Kurt Vandenberghe, said that after a detailed investigation, the directorate found that Ireland has been using a Tier I generic standard to assess greenhouse gas emissions from Ireland’s grasslands, while forestry and other agricultural activities were fully assessed under Tier II and Tier III, which require country-specific crop and fertiliser impacts to be assessed.