LIFE Beef Carbon at COP 23

LIFE Beef Carbon was recognized by the United Nations (UN) after the Paris climate change agreement and is one of the agricultural initiatives labeled in the UN climate solutions agenda. At the 2017 UN Climate Change conference (COP 23) in Bonn, Beef Carbon’s progress was presented to the EU and French pavilions. The EU event was titled “LIFE BEEF CARBON: The carbon mitigation action plan in beef production in France, Ireland, Italy and Spain” and the title of the French event was “The ruminant livestock sector engaged in the climate challenge and the SDGs”. Both events were organized by French livestock institutions (IDELE , CNIEL, CNE) and INTERBEV, with support from Teagasc and international partners. The speakers invited to these events discussed;

• The LIFE BEEF CARBON project - Jean-Baptiste Dollé, French Livestock Institute (IDELE)
• GHG emissions, beef carbon footprint and other environmental issues - Donal O’Brien, Teagasc
• Carbon mitigation action plan for Irish beef farms – Jonathan Herron, Teagasc
• Carbon sequestration in livestock systems - Katja Klumpp, INRA
• The implementation of the BEEF CARBON project in France - Testimony of Jérôme Taillefer, French farmer & Yann Bouchard, Chamber of Agriculture
• The implementation of the BEEF CARBON project in Italy - Sara Care, CREA
• Mitigating greenhouse gas emissions in the livestock sector - Anne Mottet, FAO

The presenters provided a description of the partner’s common beef carbon framework and the initial results of the project. The Irish findings included beef carbon footprint outputs from producer’s part of the Teagasc/Irish farmers Journal BETTER Farm Beef programme. These results are available from the on-line presentations along with short video’s featuring innovative farmer’s testimonies.