{"id":472780,"date":"2026-05-29T09:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T09:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/472780\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T09:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T09:09:08","slug":"irelands-figures-on-greenhouse-gases-from-farming-shocking-but-no-surprise-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/472780\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s figures on greenhouse gases from farming shocking but no surprise \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Sir, \u2013 It is shocking but not surprising to learn that reductions from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/business\/farming-food\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/business\/farming-food\/\">agriculture<\/a>, our biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, could be as little as 4 per cent (\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/environment\/2026\/05\/27\/irelands-greenhouse-gas-emissions-to-fall-by-just-half-of-the-amount-pledged\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/environment\/2026\/05\/27\/irelands-greenhouse-gas-emissions-to-fall-by-just-half-of-the-amount-pledged\/\">Ireland\u2019s greenhouse gas emissions to fall by just half of the amount pledged<\/a>,\u201d May 26th).  We have more cows than people in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/\">Ireland<\/a>. They produce a lot of methane and this gas, once in the atmosphere, is 80 times more powerful at trapping <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/environment\/climate-crisis\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/environment\/climate-crisis\/\">heat<\/a> than carbon dioxide.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">More than 150 countries including Ireland signed up for the Global Methane Pledge at Cop26 for \u201cfast action on methane to keep a 1.5C future within reach\u201d. But pledges and signing up are of little use without following through with actions, and the most obvious one is to change our model of intensive beef and dairy farming. More horticulture, fewer herds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Otherwise it appears our pledge is little more than lip service. \u2013 Yours, etc, <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">JOAN BURGESS,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Annmount, <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Cork. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir, \u2013 It is shocking but not surprising to learn that reductions from agriculture, our biggest source of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[2885,246,13355,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-472780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-climate-change","tag-environment","tag-food-production","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}