15/12/2015

Agriculture Sector 'Can And Will Do More' On Climate Change

Ireland's agricultural sector "can and will do more" on climate change, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Simon Coveney, has said.

The Minister made the comment while welcoming the "historic" Paris climate change agreement at a Farm Europe conference in Brussels.

Minister Coveney said: "It is appropriate that we are having a discussion today on sustainability, two days after the historic agreement in Paris which seeks to limit global temperature increases to less than 2 degrees, and to pursue efforts to achieve 1.5 degrees through binding commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions."

The Minister noted that the Paris Agreement included some particular points of importance to the agriculture, food and forest sectors.

"It is also appropriate that world leaders continue to recognise, in Article 2 of the agreement, that, in seeking to prevent interference with climate, we must do so in a manner that does not threaten food production. I welcome the fact that the Paris Agreement acknowledges the fundamental priority of safeguarding food security and ending hunger, and the particular vulnerabilities of food production systems to the adverse impacts of climate change. 

"These aspects of the COP agreement are consistent with the European Council’s decision last year when the 28 EU Heads of State and Governments agreed to adopt sustainable intensification as EU policy on agriculture and climate change." 

(MH/CD)

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