Massey University’s Nicola Shadbolt is to chair an independent panel commissioned by the government to review New Zealand’s methane reduction targets.
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay said the panel will report back by the end of the year with evidence-based advice on what NZ’s biogenic methane target should be to ensure no additional climate warming.
McClay said the panel will complement the Climate Change Commission’s review of the 2050 targets this year while helping to inform the government’s response to that advice.
“The government is committed to meeting our climate change obligations without shutting down Kiwi farms. We need to make sure our targets are fair and sustainable,” he said.
Farming groups have welcomed the announcement. They described the panel as credible and its members as respected experts.
Federated Farmers president Wayne Langford said the review is long overdue, describing the current targets as “divisive and highly political” with “no credible science to underpin them”.
“They’re completely unrealistic, totally unaffordable, and go much further than is needed to stop farmer’s contribution to further warming.”
Current methane targets require a 10% reduction by 2030 and 24%-47% reduction by 2050, which the federation has consistently opposed.
“The government’s own modelling showed that achieving a 10% methane reduction by 2030 could see our sheep and beef production reduce by more than 20%.”
Beef + Lamb NZ chair Kate Acland said many farmers recognise their role in addressing climate change, but they want fair targets.
“We’ve long argued that the targets should be based on no additional warming and this review will enable NZ to take a proper look at what the targets should be.
“Farmers want to feel confident that targets are underpinned by the appropriate science, where methane is being asked to do what’s being asked of other gases, which is to achieve no additional warming.”
Shadbolt, a professor of farm and agribusiness management at Massey, will be joined by David Frame, a physics professor from Canterbury University, Sara Mikaloff-Fletcher, a carbon chemistry and modelling scientist with NIWA, Laura Revell, an associate professor of physical and chemical sciences at Canterbury University and Bill Collins, a professor of atmospheric chemistry and earth system modelling at the University of Reading.
