68 December-January 2014
I
T is difficult to get a man to under-
stand something when his salary
depends upon his not understand-
ing it”. Novelist Upton Sinclair’s famous
obser vation could well have been describ-
ing Agriculture Minister, Simon Coveney,
a rare ambitious and ascending star on an
otherwise jaded Fine Gael front bench.
Coveney’s understanding of the most
basic of scientific facts will clearly
not encumber his possible trajectory
towards the goal of being Cork’s first
Taoiseach since Jack Lynch. So, when
Coveney appeared on a recent edition
of RTÉ’s ‘PrimeTime’, only the thinnest
of smiles betrayed the fact that he was
selling a series of fat porkies on national
television.
Coveney’s claim that the Irish dairy
herd could be expanded by over 300,000
cows in the next five years “while main-
taining the existing carbon footprint
of the agriculture sector” is, he must
well know, nonsensical. To defend it, he
engaged in some unconvincing waffle
about higher yields per animal somehow
magically offsetting the massive increase
in our national herd.
This manifest nonsense is blown out of
the water by data from the Environmental
Protection Agency, which show that
methane (CH4) emissions from ‘enteric
fermentation’ in Irish dairy cows actu-
ally increased, from 101kg per head per
annum in 1990 to almost 113kg per head
in 2012. Methane is a potent greenhouse
gas, at least 28 times more powerful as
a heat-trapping gas per molecule than
CO2.
The reason for the large increase in as
few as 20 years? Almost certainly, it’s
greater dairy intensification. So much
for Coveney’s blarney about higher yields
lowering emissions.
Simon Coveney has been suckered
by the IFA and Teagasc’s anti-
scientific gloss on emissions.
By John Gibbons and Paul Price
ENVIRONMENT EMISSIONS
Agri-culture
December-January 2014 69
This sleight of hand also conceals a
much wider truth about the nature of
greenhouse gas emissions. And that is,
what goes up, for all intents and pur-
poses, stays up. Each year’s emissions
are yet another warming addition to the
human-caused accumulation in Earth’s
atmosphere. So, even levelling annual
emissions adds to total emissions and
climate risk.
It is the sum of accumulated emis-
sions to date, and the future emissions
we choose to add to that absolute total
that counts, not any efficiency measure
such as emissions per animal or per kilo-
gramme of milk or beef. The atmosphere
does not care about ‘efficiency’ or ‘yield’
it just traps more heat as humans add to
the sum total amount of resident green-
house gases.
This is important because anyone who
tries to argue that improving efficiency
somehow reduces emissions does not
understand reality, or does not want us
to. Simply put, any given global warm-
ing policy limit, such as the 2ºC Ireland
has signed up to, has a related amount
of remaining emissions that can ever be
emitted. Taking from Ireland’s share of
the global carbon budget is a zero-sum
game: more, used now by us, simply
means less for others, elsewhere or in
the future.
In opposition, Coveney had a clear
grasp of the reality of climate change.
Indeed, he spoke publicly that what
he knew about the science of climate
change “sent shivers down my spine”.
But of course, Coveney was merely the
Environment Spokesperson then, and
free to speak truthfully since he had no
actual political power.
That was then.
Since becoming Agriculture Minister,
Coveney has quickly embraced the first
rule of his office: keep the IFA off your
back. And the IFA has applied its formida-
ble muscle to vehemently opposing even
the most modest steps towards address-
ing climate change. This is deeply ironic
given that agriculture is, by definition,
highly weather-dependent, and therefore
uniquely exposed to the impacts of the
very same climate change that farmers’
leaders are busy convincing themselves
and us is ‘not our problem’.
The IFA is following the same mad,
tragic logic as the global fishing lobby
which has stymied every effort at impos-
ing science-based fisheries quotas and
which, in its thirst for short-term gain, is
systematically wiping out the very basis
of their livelihood for the future.
While Coveney is snared by his ambi-
tions, and the IFA blindsided by its
inability to think strategically, where
are the expert advisors in all this?
Teagasc is the semi-state body, 75%
paid for by Irish and EU taxpayers, that
supports science-based innovation in
the agri-food sector. Is Teagasc’s defi-
nition of ‘carbon footprint’ the same as
climate science’s ‘sum total’? No, it is not.
Instead Teagasc repeatedly redefines car-
bon footprint as ‘production efficiency’
based on emissions per unit product.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the
2011 publication ‘Irish Agriculture,
Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate
Change: Opportunities, Obstacles &
Proposed Solutions’, in which Section 3.4
“From absolute emissions to emission
intensities” spells out the codology:
“Under Section 5(9) of the Climate
Change Response Bill, sectoral plans
must account for the need to (a) promote
sustainable development, (b) safeguard
economic development, (c) take advan-
tage of economic opportunities within
and outside the State and d) be based on
scientific research. Under these crite-
ria, Teagasc contends that an ‘absolute
emissions’ metric is inappropriate for
the agricultural sector”.
The Earth’s climate system is entirely
indifferent to economic imperatives.
All that matters is physics. X amount of
additional emissions begets Y increase
in average surface temperatures. And
known increases mean measurable,
extremely dangerous and largely irre-
versible impacts on all life on Earth, be
it human, dairy-cow or polar-bear.
All that matters to the climate sys-
tem is absolute emissions. For Teagasc,
a body claiming to be science-driven, to
describe this metric as “inappropriate for
the agricultural sector” strongly suggests
the organisation has undergone ‘agency
capture’. Instead of being the arbiter of
the best available scientific evidence, it
sees itself as ‘pulling on the jersey’ for
its many friends and colleagues in the
agriculture sector, the people it works
with every day, the people who it iden-
tifies with.
If the facts about the impacts of cli-
mate change are inconvenient or likely
to create tensions between Teagasc, the
Minister and the IFA, well, let’s find some
other, less unpalatable facts, dress them
up with some scientific-looking charts
(while burying the uglier realities deep
in the bowels of their reports) and, just
like Coveney on ‘Prime Time’, poof, the
problem magically disappears.
Lest we forget, in October the EU
agreed a new target of a 40% reduction
in greenhouse gas emissions, and a 27%
target for renewable energy use, by 2030.
It also set a 27% target for improvements
in energy efficiency. This is just 15 years
away. Precisely how is Ireland plan-
ning to meet these binding obligations
for dramatic emissions reductions at a
time when Harvest 2020 adds millions
of extra tonnes of emitted CO2 and meth-
ane? Perhaps every car in the country
should be taken off the road and electric-
ity rationed to six hours a day?
Given that agriculture, which accounts
for some 30% of Ireland’s total annual
emissions, has given two fingers to
bearing any of the burden of emis-
sions reductions, then clearly either the
remaining two thirds of our emissions
are going to have to virtually stop dead
or, more likely, the whole exercise is
another ghastly sham.
Globally, meat and dairying produces a
colossal 14.5% of global emissions. That’s
more than all the cars, trains, planes and
ships in the world – combined.
A recent Chatham House study in the
UK found that the public grossly underes-
timated the carbon impact of agriculture.
This lack of awareness is the main rea-
son most people are unwilling to consider
changing their diets away from meat and
dairy-intensive choices.
Despite its massive contribution to cli-
mate change, beef and dairy “attracts
remarkably little policy attention at
either the international or national level”,
the Chatham House study noted. “In the
absence of policy, livestock will consume
a larger and larger share of a rapidly-de-
clining carbon budget”. Report author
Rob Bailey added: “You can make a com-
pelling case that without dietary change
at the global level, the two-degrees goal
is pretty much off the table”.
But as we see over and over again, one
man’s global ecological disaster is anoth-
er’s economic opportunity. By now it
should be abundantly clear that Coveney
and the IFA, aided by Teagasc, are not
going to allow any number of uncooper-
ative facts to get in the way of Ireland’s
ambition to be the best little country in
the world at trashing the planet. •
John Gibbons is a specialist environmental
writer and commentator.
Paul Price has an MSc in Sustainable
Development.
Coveney’s
claim that
the dairy
herd could
be expanded
by 300,000
while
maintaining
the existing
carbon
footprint, and
waffle about
the offset of
higher yields,
is nonsensical
“

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