Green Party leader Eamon Ryan has said he is confident a deal will be struck to reduce carbon emissions on farms, while saying any cuts agriculture did not make would mean other sectors would have to do more.
Mr Ryan, the Minister for the Environment, has been locked in talks with Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue on the cuts expected from the farming sector as part of the Government’s climate action plan.
An emissions cuts range of between 22 per cent and 30 per cent was set out last year.
Mr Ryan is pushing for the cuts to be at the upper end of that scale.
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Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael backbenchers as well as farming lobby groups have criticised this and are urging Mr McConalogue to hold the line on keeping cuts closer to 22 per cent.
Both sides are to meet again this week, with Mr Ryan seeking to have a deal by the end of the month.
On Sunday, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said he would not be intervening in the talks. He said “climate change is getting worse” and Ireland would have to be “ambitious” in its response.
He also said of backbenchers’ concerns on agriculture “I know where people are coming from” and farmers had improved their carbon efficiency “very significantly”.
Mr Ryan also said it was important a deal was done on carbon ceilings for every sector because the challenge presented by climate change was “beyond compare”.
He said a lot of the discussion with Mr McConalogue was about how cuts in emissions could be made while increasing incomes for Irish farmers.
Speaking on RTÉ radio, Mr Ryan said he was “confident” there would be an agreement but also added: “Anything that agriculture doesn’t do, other sectors are going to have to do more”.
He said Irish farmers could increase incomes while cutting emissions through measures such as converting waste materials to bio-methane gas; payments to store carbon in the soil; and afforestation in return for a carbon credit farmers could cash in on.
He said the Greens would not back down in the negotiations on carbon emissions cuts.
He was also asked about a report that the European Commission is expected to tell European Union member states to cut the use of gas amid the ongoing energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine and concerns over supplies in the winter.
While many EU states are heavily reliant on Russian gas — which may be switched off in response to sanctions on Russian president Vladimir Putin’s regime — Ireland gets most of its gas from Britain.
Ireland has not updated its arrangements for this with Britain since Brexit.
Mr Ryan said Ireland and Britain would have to work on energy co-operation regardless of what happened with Brexit and it was in the interests of both to do so. He expected to have meetings in Brussels and London in the coming weeks on this.
He did not expect electricity blackouts this winter and said: “The real risk and the problem is we’re facing really high prices.”
“Gas and energy and food prices is being used as a weapon of war [by Russia].”
Mr Ryan said: “We’re going to do absolutely everything to make sure that we have sufficient power and I expect we will.”
