Ireland needs to "maintain commitment" to a just transition as it takes steps towards carbon neutrality, the OECD has emphasised.

Today (Monday, May 10), the OECD published the Environmental Performance Review of Ireland, an independent assessment of the country's progress towards its environmental policy objectives.

Speaking at the launch, Minister for Climate Eamon Ryan said that a just transition for agriculture will be key to tackling the climate crisis.

Agriculture accounts for 35% of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), one of the highest shares in the OECD. Most agriculture GHGs are from livestock.

"The key to solving this is seeing the farmers of this country being central to the solution," the minister said.

"The key policy metric that I'm looking to implement is that as our emissions fall, our agricultural incomes rise. That has to be the mechanism in which we deliver this just transition and change in how we manage our land.

"The OECD has been championing the likes of the [Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures], where we set international accounting standards, so that the full auditing of the environmental effect of businesses is taken into account - that we measure in businesses not just what the emissions are from their own processes, but also what the consumption of their product causes; also, the emissions of their suppliers.

"I believe one of the key developments we need to see is a greater share of income going to the primary producers from this international trade and transactions.

"This is the difficulty we balance but we need to do it; we need to give greater income to those who are going to be the frontline in protecting nature and that has to come from the processing and retail sector so that we, in meeting our auditing requirements, are fully accounting for all our emissions."

The minister added that it's land-based solutions that are going to be important in solving the climate crisis, particularly in a country like Ireland.

"We've to encourage a whole load of young people now to go into agricultural and forestry college and have the skills they're going to need in the next 30 years to protect nature - and that's why I think this focus on just transition agriculture is going to be key in everything government does," he added.

According to the OECD, Ireland's progress in delinking the economy from environmental pressures "has been uneven in the last decade".

"Greenhouse gas emissions, waste generation and nutrient pollution rose with strong economic growth between the mid-2010s and the inception of the Covid-19 pandemic," the review notes.

"Climate, circular economy and biodiversity policies have gained renewed impetus, with various ambitious policy initiatives and large public investment plans.

"These need to be swiftly implemented to alleviate the growing pressures from intensification of agricultural practices, demographic development, urban sprawl and road traffic."

Some of the key recommendations for Ireland outlined in the review include: