The Potential Impacts of an EU-wide Agricultural Mitigation Target on the Irish Agriculture Sector

Abstract

The recently published Irish Climate Action Plan has outlined the leading role which agriculture will have to take for Ireland in order to achieve national reduction of GHG emissions. The agricultural sector model CAPRI is used to investigate the impact of an EU-wide agricultural mitigation target on the Irish agriculture sector. Three scenarios developed under the JRC-project EcAMPA2, allowing the endogenous implementation of mitigation technologies, will show the possible impact range that such a policy target could have. It can be inferred that the Irish agriculture sector can achieve the set mitigation target by adapting livestock production systems, resulting in efficiency gains and implementing specific mitigation technologies. Without a mitigation target, changes are marginal, and voluntary adoption will rarely take place. Subsidising the implementation of mitigation technologies can buffer the impact that a mitigation target will have on the Irish agriculture sector, while achieving the set reduction.