Achieving greenhouse gas reductions in the Irish dairy sector through carbon pricing: The feasibility of living labs and the attitudes of stakeholders

The Irish government has committed to a 51% reduction of national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030 as compared to 2018, in line with European Union directives, international treaties, and the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act of 2021. Given the proportion of Irish GHG emissions originating in the agricultural sector and the difficulties in reducing these emissions to date, new approaches may be required to achieve emissions reduction goals. One potential approach may be the introduction of voluntary carbon markets (VCM). In a VCM participating farmers implement GHG emissions reducing technologies of their choosing on their farms. The GHG emissions reductions achieved can be sold to generate an additional income stream. There is however uncertainty about the feasibility of VCMs due to limited implementation and the complexity of their establishment and operation. Given this complexity, the establishment of a fullscale test VCM would be unrealistic, however, utilizing the Living Labs Framework, a small-scale pilot VCM is feasible. This will provide insight into the feasibility of VCMs, the willingness of farmers to participate, and the demand for carbon credits generated by farmers. This thesis will examine these issues through the lens of the SmartDairy project1 including its living labs. In addition, interviews conducted among Irish dairy farmers by the SmartDairy team will be examined to assess farmers willingness to engage in VCMs, their thoughts on the potential structures of those VCMs and who they believe should be tasked with organisation and oversight of VCMs.

Publisher

University of Galway

Rights

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

cbn

Collections

University of Galway Theses (Research Masters Theses)