A Tipperary climate coach says the language of fear around Just Transition in agriculture needs to be removed.
Former secondary school teacher and environmentalist, Noel Buckley, attending the National Economic and Social Council’s recent event which looked at this area specifically.
He says that all sectors were represented there from politicians, to climate activists, medical practitioners, social scientists, and farmers during which a constructive debate was had.
Noel told Tipp Today that farmers over the years have always had to change and adjust this switch is just more complex:
“They had a challenge in the 90’s with the milk cut and the 2000’s when they had to work within the limited quota of what they had and they survived it. But the current transition if you like is much more complex because you are going to have to engage with farmers locally and with models of farmers who are engaging in that already. You are also gong t have to invest in resource and advice and I think the big challenge is to remove the language of fear.”
Proper resourcing and funding will help ease the concerns of farmers around Just Transition.
The aim currently is to limit greenhouse gas emissions to at least 42% by 2030, in addition to other measures such as re-wetting.
Noel Buckley, told Tipp Today that if they want to encourage farmers to change then they need to back that up financially:
“Farmers will have to be supported and one of the key things that came out of that conference from all sides from the political the European and the science level was the importance of creating a fund that will pay famers to be stewards of it. In fact the IFA were very strong on that it needs to be sperate from the CAP fund, what you might call an Environmental fund, that will pay farmers.”
