A REPORT from two Oireachtas committees has called on the EU Commission to set out the conditions for a national programme for forest carbon offsets in the Republic.
The report says that more attention should be given to wood biomass to assist in meeting targets for the EU's renewable energy sources. The Oireachtas committees dealing with climate change and energy security, and agriculture, forestry and food, published the report yesterday in response to the commission's Green Paper on protecting Europe's forests against climate change.
The report's author, Fine Gael agriculture spokesman Andrew Doyle, said the forestry sector would have to be part of the solution if Ireland was to meet its climate change obligations.
"This will ultimately allow Ireland to develop a forestry sector that will put it on par with its European counterparts, both in terms of the percentage of land cover and the need to build up an indigenous industry with a plentiful supply of raw material."
The report says that as part of the debate on reform of the Common Agricultural Policy the commission should make recommendations about providing higher levels of EU co-financing for afforestation under the EU's rural development programme post-2012. It describes as "a major disappointment" the absence of any assessment in the Green Paper of the potential for increased afforestation.
