Northern Ireland reduces dairy farming's GHG emissions by 30.7 per cent since 1990

The UK Climate Change Act commits the UK to an 80% reduction in GHG emissions by 2050 from 1990 baseline levels
The UK Climate Change Act commits the UK to an 80% reduction in GHG emissions by 2050 from 1990 baseline levels

A statistical report relating to greenhouse gas emissions on Northern Ireland dairy farms has been released today, showing a 30.7 per cent decrease in dairy farming's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

This statistical report presents findings from a carbon footprint time series study that was undertaken for Northern Ireland’s dairy farm sector.

For the period 1990 to 2014, the carbon foot printing study shows that while the agriculture sector has made relatively modest progress in reducing total GHG emissions (i.e. a reduction of 5.2% since 1990), dairy farming has made substantial progress in reducing its emissions on a per unit of production basis (i.e. a 30.7% reduction since 1990).

The reason for this improvement is that Northern Ireland has experienced continual growth in its total milk production over the period (i.e. a 67% increase since 1990) which was driven primarily through increases in milk yield per cow.

This growth has spread the emissions burden associated with each dairy cow over a greater volume of production.

The UK Climate Change Act commits the UK to an 80% reduction in GHG emissions by 2050 from 1990 baseline levels. The UK GHG inventory charts annual emission levels from 1990 at the UK, regional, and sectoral levels.

The inventory shows that by 2014, Northern Ireland reduced its emissions by 17.4% from 1990 levels whereas its agriculture sector only achieved a 5.2% reduction.

Global methane gas emissions are growing at the fastest rate in decades and food production could be to blame, analysis from December 2016 revealed.

It was the message of a team of international scientists in an editorial published from 12 December in the journal Environmental Research Letters. The group reports that methane concentrations in the air began to surge around 2007 and grew precipitously in 2014 and 2015. In that two-year period, concentrations shot up by 10 or more parts per billion annually.