Climate Bolloxolgy.

So What's your solution ? Drive on ? And who pays for that?

Or do you hope to be dead before the worst of it hits ?

They are not credits. They are allowances. This is nothing to do with sequestration or anything like that.

What happens is that a ‘cap’ is set at EU level. This covers the entire ETS sector which is industry, electricity generation , some aviation but not building heating, agriculture or transport.

Every year the cap is reduced. This means that industry will be forced to reduce its emissions by a certain amount by 2030.

You have to buy your right to emit in an auction and this right is tradable. (There are some free allowances for certain sectors which are vulnerable to imports but the principle is still the same, if you emit it costs you.)

every year we can expect the allowances to get more expensive as the cap is reduced. The pressure is on industry to become less carbon intensive.

All fossil electricity generation is subject to this. It drives up the cost that the electricity is sold at on the wholesale day-ahead market. Coal is hit hardest, wind isn’t hit at all. This is passed on ultimately to the consumer. Bigger consumers like data centres bear most of the cost.

This also has a counterintuitive result. Closing a data centre in ireland will have no downward effect on EU or global emissions. The allowances which are not used in Ireland will simply be used somewhere else in the EU.

This is a good article which explains the basics and indicates how the ETS might be expanded

https://www.euronews.com/amp/2021/07/16/why-is-the-eu-s-new-emissions-trading-system-so-controversial

It seems to me that whenever the yogurt knitters of Chelsea decide that something should be done in a green way, it will not touch their money cushioned lives. Instead those working hard to raise families on low wages will be made to feel the financial impact.

https://youtu.be/OpEB6hCpIGM

Dairy is the one sector of Irish agriculture that is viable and they want to cut that

There's actually possibility in that - tractors are heavy by design , so a lot of that could be removable battery packs- they already have hydraulic systems - so swapping out heavy packs every few hours wouldn't necessarily be an impossible task -

And having huge batteries plugged into the grid when not doing farm work is a way to make money ...

Probably a contractors game for the high end stuff .. - leasing heavy duty batteries -

It would be money from America at that!!

Compensation tables will be nicely set up with the production bands for nitrates…

Jeez I’m jealous. Ye’re in for some haul of money though. Unfortunately not a word about methane etc here, and looks like there won’t be either. Damn.

I'm not downplaying anything, just rightsizing it in a context where it's usually inflated. Like breathless statements about food exports, that rarely mention the subsidies that support it. Or highlighting the portion of that's generated by drinks.

Or the way that Teagasc inflate the downstream employment relating to food, by including the job of the Tesco Ireland checkout operator selling you imported food.

I think the matter is well explained here:

Key quote for me "Whatever way you look at it, agriculture, forestry and fishing only account for about 3% of our GNP – even after you strip out multinationals’ profits."

The thing is that Irish farming produces milk and beef and lamb more efficiently than anywhere else in the world. Just like you say the Dutch produce vegetables more efficiently and for that matter China produce the unecessary tat that you consume everyday.

I dont hear you shouting to shut down Chinese factories or Dutch vegetable growers. No its just your begrudging attitude to Irish farmers.

You should read the vitriol spewed against the same farmers lobby organisation by farmers, 'twould remind you of spolt children.

The IFA punch way above their weight but climate change will test them, I noticed today there's no other farming organisation picking up the fight against this, even protests are half hearted,

Probably shouldn't be opposing it

I am a dairy farmer and produce milk without any subsidies. Our milk is processed into butter, cheese, milk powder etc and sold without any subsidies all over the world.

Get you facts correct before you make your sweeping statements.

The majority of greenhouse gases come for burps not farts

I would imagine the majority of dairy farmers would be viable without subsidies and would in fact prefer to be left get on with running their business without interference or subsidies.