Ireland's State of the Environment Report 2024

268 Chapter 10: Environment and Agriculture There are many competing demands for the use of land, and there is a need to balance the production of food with the need to achieve environmental objectives important for current and future generations (Topic Box 10.3). Phase 1 of the Land Use Review was published in 2023 and aimed to determine the environmental, 29 www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2021/act/32/section/15 (accessed 5 June 2024). ecological and economic characteristics of land types across Ireland (Chapter 5). Phase 2 is currently under way and will consider the policies, measures and actions that will need to be taken in the context of the government’s wider economic, social and climate objectives. Topic Box 10.3  Envisioning a climate-neutral agriculture and land sector The Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021 29 commits Ireland to reaching a legally binding target of climate neutrality no later than 2050. This will necessarily involve very large reductions in emissions from agriculture and land use, alongside ‘carbon dioxide removal’ to offset the inevitable residual emissions (especially from biological systems producing food, for which limited technical abatement options are available). Carbon dioxide removal could include various technologies such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, direct air capture, afforestation, artificial weathering of rock and enhanced sequestration of carbon in soils. Many of these options require significant areas of land, and the most suitable proven and scalable option for Ireland – a country with already carbon-rich soils and low forest cover – is afforestation. It is increasingly recognised that bioenergy with carbon capture and storage is also likely to be needed to achieve climate neutrality, once it can be commercially scaled up (DECC, 2023). Ireland has a land area of 70,273 km². This cannot be increased. Therefore, carbon dioxide removal will increasingly compete with other land uses, including producing food, renewable energy and bioeconomy feedstocks and providing habitats for enhanced biodiversity (IPCC, 2019). In fact, given the limited potential to abate emissions from animal and soil processes, maintaining high levels of milk and/or beef production for export into the future will necessitate large areas of land being dedicated to carbon dioxide removal (preferably alongside the delivery of other ecosystem services in a manner that optimises a multifunctional land use approach). This requires urgent planning if it is to be deployed in a timely and efficient manner. The EPA and DAFM co-funded a research project SeQUEsTER, led by the University of Galway, University of Limerick and Teagasc sought to explore what levels of future agricultural production could be supported within the constraints imposed by achieving climate neutrality and the land areas available for organic soil rewetting/ water table management and afforestation (Styles et al ., 2024). The analysis remains highly uncertain owing to ongoing developments in inventory estimates for land sector emissions and potential alternative approaches to defining ‘climate neutrality’ (Bishop et al ., 2024). Nonetheless, indicative ‘climate-neutral’ scenarios that maintain high levels of milk output clearly demonstrate the magnitude of land use transformation that will be required to achieve climate neutrality. Grassland used for animal production would need to decline from 58% of national land cover to 26%, while forest cover would need to increase from 11% to 32%, under internationally agreed ‘GWP100’ (100 year global warming potential) accounting. Even if methane is set a separate non-zero target in future to represent its short residence time in the atmosphere compared with other greenhouse gases, achieving climate neutrality would require huge changes in agriculture and land use (e.g. a doubling of forest area, and farmed grassland area reducing from 56% to 32% of land cover). For more information about land cover and use, see Chapter 5.