The Paris Agreement stated that we need to limit global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. Ireland is one of 195 countries who have ratified the agreement and pledged to reach net zero by 2050. To achieve this, the public in general, along with the corporate world have been encouraged to reduce their carbon footprint; flying less, taking public transport or cycling and walking, switching to electric vehicles, burning less fossil fuel, insulating buildings and installing solar panels and ground source heat pumps where possible. Fiona Hayes shares how an innovative project right here in West Cork working to increase woodland removal of carbon from the atmosphere will open opportunities to landowners and communities in the area.
I have heard many conversations indicating that people are questioning whether these climate targets are achievable and questioning why it is always the public who must make difficult changes rather than the corporate world. It is very difficult for example, for people in rural Ireland to rely on public transport. However, under EU regulations, corporations are legally required to reduce their carbon footprint producing detailed reporting and reduction plans. The EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) ‘requires’ companies, for example those in aviation or IT who have high emissions, to buy carbon allowances to offset their high emissions.
These allowances, known as carbon credits, are part of the cost of doing business.
The EU sets a cap on the total emissions allowable and any emissions beyond that must be offset by purchasing carbon credits. This creates a tradeable market for carbon credits, pushing companies into investing in clean energy technologies so that they do their best to stay under the cap, only purchasing credits where they are unable to do so.
Emissions are but one aspect of reducing greenhouse gases though. As well as reducing our carbon footprint, it is estimated that we need to remove 10 gigatons of carbon from the atmosphere on an annual basis. Currently we remove roughly 200 million tons and so this removal needs to be ramped up dramatically. Carbon sequestration refers to removing carbon from the atmosphere and locking it into structures on earth. This concept is behind the encouragement to plant trees that we regularly come across. Carbon is removed from the atmosphere naturally by trees and other plants and is stored in their structure. This carbon sequestration can be part of the carbon market with companies purchasing carbon credits by investing in improved and new areas of forest and woodland that will sequester carbon.
Of course other natural structures, for example coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, salt marshes, seagrass beds and phytoplankton capture CO2, which then sinks as organic matter and shells, but there is a lack of data on natural carbon sequestration, which makes including it into the modelling difficult.
This led the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London to recently conduct a review of the available scientific literature to assess how much carbon forests could feasibly absorb. They estimate that if we absolutely maximised the amount of vegetation all land on Earth could hold, we would sequester enough carbon through forest and woodland to offset about ten years of greenhouse gas emissions at current rates.
To maximise our carbon sequestration we need to ensure we protect ecosystems both on land and in the oceans and we need to improve the understanding of and respect for how to enable these ecosystems to survive and thrive. We need to sanctify the importance of their health and take care of them blocking deforestation; and we need to increase the volume of sequestration by reforesting in suitable areas.
Of course, for companies to invest in carbon credits provided for example, by woodland we need to know how much carbon any given area of woodland or forest is taking out of the atmosphere.
On December 18, 2025, the Centre of Excellence for Climate Action and Sustainability (CECAS) hosted an important meeting that brought together landowners, community representatives and environmentalists to work together towards managing Irelands natural resources in a way that will empower Irish Communities through managing carbon credits.
CECAS has been chosen to partner ‘Natural Resources Institute Finland’, ‘Finland Oulu University of Applied Sciences’, and the ‘Agricultural University of Iceland’ in a three-year project focused on improving forest carbon capture and biodiversity.
The project will produce carbon assessment tools and train people in how to use them, how to manage their woodland using ecosystem-based approaches to improve carbon capture; and how to enter the carbon credits market in order to fund further forestry and woodland projects.
The meeting, the third of its kind hosted by CECAS this year, attracted small-scale landowners, foresters, experts in the carbon market arena, government representatives and community representatives who can see that organising community cooperatives could benefit from the carbon market income, whilst helping their communities to build climate resilience.
This is something that many rural communities, located in remote areas, inaccessible by public transport could contribute in the effort to reduce greenhouse gases.
This work is complex and in its infancy. The meeting at Myross Woods house included a live demonstration measuring carbon capture by using drones to survey woodland. Using a Scan Mapper carried by the drone, the team are able to measure the number, density, height and variety of trees growing in an area. This scanning provides accurate data needed to bring transparency to carbon measurements in a way that can enable the trade to be regulated.
By repeating the data collection on the same sites it is possible to quantify the amount of carbon sequester created above ground by the trees as the forests grow.
The project will also help to build a replicable framework for woodland and forest management and provide pilot sites demonstrating scalable solutions.
This workshop on December 19 demonstrated the scale and importance of this project as an EU initiative. Attendees from many different backgrounds raised hopes and questions. They identified areas where there is a massive need for education and knowledge sharing and areas where simply not enough knowledge is yet available.
That West Cork is a vital part of this international development is very exciting and will give people in Rural Ireland a way of positively contributing to the climate change reduction effort.
For more information on how you can become involved contact the project manager Ana Ospina at ana@greenskibbereen.ie.
