Benefits and Costs of Methane Emission Reduction in the Irish National Herd

In this paper, we compare many of the widely available estimated global benefits of abatement with the costs to Irish agriculture, as estimated by the CAPRI model. We apply the model to Ireland only, in a simple comparative static simulation, and assume fixed prices. We focus more on methane reduction than GWP reduction as a whole, because most of the discussion regarding global warming from agriculture in Ireland has focused on methane. Our results suggest that the costs of methane abatement to the farming sector do indeed outweigh the global benefits, except in the case of very small methane abatements. However, if one also factors in the gains to society of the FEOGA budget rebates, then all losses disappear, and in fact net financial gains occur. We conclude that this may have implications for the design of methane reduction policies.