How much the country should reduce its emissions by, and how much the farming sector should shoulder of that reduction are challenged by Beef + Lamb NZ in its submission to the Climate Change Commission.
The commission received submissions this month on its 2050 emissions target reviews, and its assessment of New Zealand’s fourth emissions budget for 2036-2040.
Madeline Hall, BLNZ’s senior policy analyst, said the continued focus on the need to be carbon zero by 2050 has captured agricultural methane emissions disproportionately. This is despite methane having a significantly shorter lifespan in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.
She said the commission appears to be driven more by what the rest of the world thinks, rather than what is fair on a per-sector basis within NZ.
“Given this country’s unique greenhouse gas profile, dominated by ruminant methane, the targets have the pastoral sector carrying a disproportionate load of the country’s total carbon reduction goal.”
As understanding has grown of long- and short-lived gases in the past few years, BLNZ is asking for a review of the targets and a reduction in the methane reduction goals of 24-47% by 2050.
“It is good science to go back and revise the goals, based off limitations of what was used. We have always had a problem with this,” Hall said.
BLNZ also refers to the International Panel on Climate Change, which in its most recent assessment acknowledged the new emission metric of GWP*, which it maintains better accounts for the different physical properties of short- and long-lived gases.
“This is a key change since the targets were set in 2019, and although the science is not ‘new’, wider acceptance and the implications of it are,” the submission says.
Modelling commissioned by BLNZ, DairyNZ and Federated Farmers last year showed that a 15% reduction methane from 2017 levels would see methane not add “additional warming” from 2020 levels.
This is more ambitious than for long-lived gases that have until 2050 to achieve “no additional warming”.
“Right now, our targets are asking the pastoral sector to not only reduce methane disproportionately, but to also provide more land for afforestation to offset fossil fuel emissions that are not from agriculture,” Hall said.
The impacts of this, along with the expected impacts of a changing climate, are substantial for red meat farmers, said Hall.
The CCC’s modelling has a 17% reduction in red meat by 2050.
However, BLNZ’s modelling indicates the anticipated 1.43 million hectares in additional forestry that the CCC is budgeting for would push red meat stock numbers down 35%, with a $30.8 billion cumulative loss of red meat export earnings over that period.
Currently NZ and Kazakhstan are the only countries in the world where all emissions can be offset against forest plantings.
BLNZ’s submission also takes the commission to task on the availability, or lack, of tech and tools to help farmers deal with methane mitigation.
It points out when the 2050 target was legislated, technology was a key assumption for helping to meet it. Yet mitigation compounds are not regulated or even close to being commercialised here.
The CCC’s own recent commissioned work also highlights that tools and techniques that could be adopted are only in the discovery stage.
“We are hopeful new technologies will be developed that will offer farmers easy ways to reduce emissions in the future, but we oppose over-promoting solutions that create unrealistic expectations,” says BLNZ’s submission.
Hall said farmers acknowledged they needed to bear some of the burden in reducing emissions.
“But our current targets mean you are asking them to provide land for a large proportion of off farm carbon emissions as well.”
Submissions to the CCC closed in May.
