Carbon farming

Climate change and its impacts

Climate change, driven by humanity’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, has resulted in rapid, widespread and unprecedented changes to the Earth’s climate. Atmospheric GHG concentrations are at their highest level in millions of years. The last decade was likely warmer than any sustained period in at least the last 100,000 years. Global sea levels have risen by 20 centimetres (cm) since 1900, and sea level rise is accelerating.

Ireland now experiences annual average temperatures approximately 1°Celcius (C) higher than the early 20th century. Sixteen of the 20 warmest years have occurred since 1990, 2022 was the hottest to date. Ireland has also suffered an increase in heavy rainfall extremes. Ireland’s State of the Environment Report 2024 describes the state of our environment as dire and deteriorating.

Agriculture and emissions

Agriculture is the largest contributor to Ireland’s GHG emissions (37.8%), followed by transport (21.4%) and energy (14.3%). However, agricultural GHG emissions have recently declined – by 2% in 2022 and a further 4.6% in 2023.

Climate impacts and farming

Climate impacts affect all of society, and represent a particular risk for farming such as:

• decreasing grass and crop yields;
• increasing pest and disease impacts;
• floods, droughts and soil break down.

Carbon farming can protect farms by building in resilience to these impacts and providing farm diversification opportunities. Rolling out and ramping up carbon farming has the potential to drive down emissions, increase farm biodiversity and improve water quality without impacting production.

Carbon farming and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)

Some carbon farming measures are already within the CAP. Examples include standards for keeping land in ‘Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition’, including standards for peatland protection and standards for protecting environmentally sensitive grassland. Both measures seek to maintain and enhance carbon removals from the atmosphere. Additional measures include:

• planting hedgerows;
• planting and improving forestry and treelines;
• using treebelts to capture ammonia;
• nature-sensitive soil management of protected lands.

Measures currently implemented in Ireland include the Suckler Carbon Efficiency Programme, which aims to improve suckler herd genetics for carbon efficiency, and the Straw Incorporation Measure, which increases soil carbon by chopping straw post-harvest and incorporating it into the soil.

However, there is no regulated, certified system to pay farmers for the carbon they remove from the atmosphere and store on their lands.

European developments

European carbon farming policy is developing quickly. The European Parliament recently adopted the provisional agreement on the Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming (CRCF) Regulation. This establishes an EU-level certification framework for permanent carbon removals, carbon farming and carbon storage in products. It sets out rules to recognise public and private certification schemes that comply with the EU framework, and criteria ensuring the quality of carbon removals and the transparency and credibility of the certification process.

However, some environmental groups have raised concerns that the CRCF Regulation will not lead to lasting carbon removals, and should not be used for carbon offsets. They suggest that the CRCF framework could lead to greenwashing.

Similarly, the Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) are concerned that the EU framework appears to only reward new measures and does not value the carbon already stored in farms’ soils, trees and hedgerows. They call for farmers to be paid for their beneficial practices, regardless of when they started.

Irish policy

An Irish Carbon Farming Framework is currently being developed. Responses to a public consultation on the Irish Framework agreed that carbon removal, GHG reductions and biodiversity measures should be included and rewarded. Stakeholder consultations were also held. The next steps will be:

• Finalising key principles to guide Carbon Farming, with further public consultation.
• Continued engagement with CRCF developments at EU level to ensure the Irish Framework aligns with the EU’s certification systems.
• Using pilot projects to demonstrate the effectiveness of the Framework.
• Developing methods specific to activity types: carbon removal, emissions reduction, and biodiversity preservation/restoration.

Carbon farming in practice

Carbon farming is being used in Europe, at project and national scales. The Institute for European Environmental Policy recently analysed a sample 52 projects rolling out carbon farming practices (including eight in Ireland). These projects use combinations of 18 practices across four themes:

1. Agroforestry
2. Cropland management
3. Grassland, livestock and manure management
4. Peatland management

In the UK, peatland owners can sign up to the Peatland Code, a voluntary certification standard for carbon removals. The Code ensures that the climate benefits of restoration (carbon credits) are real, quantifiable, additional and permanent. These credits can be sold into the global voluntary carbon market.

In the Netherlands, the Currency for Peat initiative rewards landowners for rewetting peat grasslands. Once actions are certified to have reduced emissions, they count as carbon credits. The credits are sold through platformCO2neutral, an online carbon trading platform.

Similar codes are being set up in Ireland. These include work by LIFE Carbon Farming, FarmCarbon-EIP and Peatland Finance Ireland, all of which envisage a future where landowners can be financially rewarded for actions which reduce emissions and store carbon on their lands. The implementation of a single government-backed code, consistent with the EU’s CRCF Regulation, would support the successful operation of Carbon Farming in Ireland.

What can Members do?

Certified, flexible and robustly monitored Carbon Farming schemes have the potential to ensure win-wins for farmers and the climate. To support such measures, Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas could consider:

• introducing discussion of carbon farming schemes in chamber business;
• engaging in legislation formation to enable such schemes;
• scrutinising carbon farming schemes through Committees;
• seeking regular reporting on the performance of schemes to the Houses.