Ireland won't be cutting livestock numbers to slash emissions, Agriculture Minister tells COP28

Minister Charlie McConalogue says they are instead looking to tech fixes, methane reduction from burps and genetic engineering of animals to reduce the climate impact of meat and dairy

Ireland's agriculture minister says he won't be cutting livestock numbers to slash emissions and is instead looking to techno fixes like genetic engineering and supplements to cut methane in animal burps at COP28.

Minister McConalogue stood shoulder to shoulder with his United Arab Emirates counterpart on Food, Agriculture and Water Day at COP28 on Sunday and gushed about the sustainability of our food systems.

Ireland did rate number two in the 2022 Global Food Security Index but most of our meat and dairy is exported with about 60% of everything else, including animal feed, having to be shipped in.

READ MORE: COP28 'will give us the future or be the graveyard of 1.5' degrees warns Mary Robinson

The sector is also our single biggest carbon emitter and the State is also being taken to court by Europe because of continued failures to protect our lakes, rivers, and coasts from pollution, most of which comes from farming.

Minister Charlie McConalogue told the packed UAE pavilion of our “goal to have a climate neutral food system by 2050”.

He outlined a long list of plans to do that - none of which included reducing livestock numbers - as IFA chief Tim Cullinane and the lobby group’s EU affairs director, Liam MacHale, looked on from the front row.

Instead he says Ireland will adopt a range of techno-fixes including supplements to reduce the methane from cow and sheep burps, genetically engineering our animals, earlier slaughtering ages and even carbon capture using nature.

Tom Arnold also spoke in support of Irish innovations at the joint UAE-Ireland event.

Climate expert, Professor John Sweeney, who was listening intently from the audience says: “I think there was a great deal of spin at that event.

“The position of Ireland was exaggerated in terms of its sustainability.

“The idea that a country that has 3.7 times the per capita methane emissions as the European average... that agriculture is responsible for 50% of its river and estuarine areas being polluted and responsible for the decimation of some of its key biodiversity assets is somehow on a very sustainable path, I think it something that didn’t really come out in that meeting.

“I was also disappointed the environmental impacts were not properly elaborated by Tom Arnold, in particular, in terms of the evolution of agricultural policy.

“I think there still is a very powerful perception among agriculturalists that they are on the right path and it’s driven mainly by profits and a false idea of efficiency.

“As the Minister said, meeting the carbon budgets for 21-25 will be challenging. I think that’s an understatement because we’re so far off course.

“Unless radical action is taken in terms of short fixes via reductions of the livestock herd I don’t see any prospect of us meeting those obligations in the short term.”

We asked Minister McConalogue after the event if Ireland should be reducing farmed animal numbers to meet its targets. He said: “It shouldn’t be an objective of ours. What we want to do is reduce the emissions footprint of how we produce the food.

“Meats and dairy products are a really important part of healthy, balanced diets.”

We reminded him that half of any healthy diet should be fruit and vegetables and asked if he plans to help increase production of these in light of climate impacts on Europe.

He added: “I want to see us grow more fruit and vegetables... that we can grow well in Ireland with our climate.

“We are not as self sufficient as we should be in that space and that’s something I want to encourage and see us do more.”

Minister McConalogue told us it was important he attended COP28 as this year, emissions from food were on the agenda for the first time.

Tom Arnold said Ireland is “linking policies for food with policies for climate in a much more substantial way” through the agri-food policy up to 2030.

It should be noted, however, that the policy was not supported by Ireland’s Environment Pillar.

Tom added: “Diet is hugely important and that is certainly going to mean a rebalancing of diets in richer countries where there’s possibly overconsumption of certain products.

“But in most of the poorer countries the need for increased animal protein to improve the diet and nutrition of people is very important.”

We later asked Tom what this means for Irish folks. He added: “There’s national dietary guidelines and we need a somewhat more balanced diet - that doesn’t mean cutting out meat.

“For some people it means reducing it and I don’t think it should be a very controversial issue to say that.

“There wouldn’t be any argument in favour of saying people should eat meat seven days a week.”

Stay with us until December 13 for all the latest updates on the COP28 climate summit in Dubai with support from Global Ireland. You can also follow our environment correspondent on X @ShaunaReports

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