The Zero Carbon Bill is an opportunity for New Zealand to
lead the world on smart agricultural emissions policy. James Shaw has regularly
touted his wish to see our country as international leaders on climate change
and is trying to break new ground by bringing biological emissions into the ETS.
To be leaders however, we must look forward and not backwards.
The issues with the current Global Warming Potential (GWP)
accounting system for methane are now widely publicised and understood. Anyone
who cares to investigate the origins of GWP accounting will find it was
actually created by a group of climate scientists to demonstrate the flaws in
comparing short and long-lived greenhouse gases. To their surprise, the IPCC
saw things differently and adopted it as the international standard. So
although GWP is now the accepted way to compare different GHG emissions, people
should not be fooled into thinking it got there on scientific merit.
The flaws with GWP create significant policy issues for the
Zero Carbon Bill. The goal of the Paris Agreement is specifically to stop
warming, yet the Government response to this is to propose a simplistic tax on methane
emissions. The Government currently has no way to calculate the warming effect
from steady flow methane emissions so cannot even say if the tax is successful
in its’ goal or not.
This point is compounded by the fact MfE has recently
confirmed they do not know if NZ agriculture is contributing to warming or cooling
as of 2018. Surely a world leader in agricultural climate change policy should
be able to answer this basic question?
No one would argue with the fact a ton of methane emitted
into the atmosphere will cause warming, that’s just a fact. That’s not how
farms work however, they emit a steady flow of methane over time and if that
flow is stabilised, any ongoing warming effect is thought to be ‘very minor’.
This is important for our industry because 2016 methane emissions were only 4%
above 1990 levels and are declining. The warming effect from methane is
probably zero but farmers have no agreed way to demonstrate that yet.
If New Zealand really does have ambitions of leadership in
this important global issue we will need to do things differently. Finding way
to account for methane that directly correlates to warming is an absolute must for
our ETS to have scientific integrity. Prominent climate scientists like David Frame from
Victoria University have identified this as an issue and are promoting solutions
such as the GWP* metric.
The other aspect holding us back from a leadership position
on agricultural emissions is our lack of understanding on carbon sequestration.
All the research funding has gone into the emissions side of the equation and
almost none into understanding how much carbon is locked up annually on
agricultural land. How can farmers possibly complete an individual farm GHG
budget with only half the information? We now know thanks to the good work of
Beef and Lamb that their farmers alone possess 1.4 million hectares’ of woody
vegetation. Although the detail on actual sequestration rates is still being
worked out, much of this area will be regenerating native bush which will
continue sequestering carbon for hundreds of years.
This give’s New Zealand its’ next big opportunity to
innovate and show leadership. Satellite senor technology is now so advanced
that we can accurately measure above ground biomass accumulation. Instead of
using rough estimates of carbon accumulation using farm maps and sequestration
rate tables, we should be assessing properties annually and giving farmers
credit for their annual measured carbon accumulation. Sure, it will take a
couple of years to develop and calibrate this type of system, but any country
trying to claim a leadership position cannot ignore this technology.
The future of agricultural emissions accounting is to link
satellite biomass data with individual farm GHG budgets using a model such as
Overseer. We must also use a smarter way to account for methane which directly
correlates to warming. If we can achieve this, we will not only be world
leaders in accounting for agricultural emissions, but we might very well have
created the world’s first verifiable ‘warming neutral’ agricultural industry. The
Paris Agreement allows us the flexibility to innovate and do things better so as
Jacinda Ardern would say, “lets’ do this!”
Steven Cranston
is a Hamilton-based Agricultural and Environmental Consultant , who
blogs at agriconsulting.co.nz .
3 comments:
One should question the first premise. Why should New Zealand take any action in relation the the Paris Acord.
We are .17% of world Carbon dioxide Emissions.
The entire exercise is therefore pointless.
Why is agriculture the bad boy regarding GHG?
Answer; because global government decree that South America should be the producers of agricultural product, so they will pay nothing for their animal emissions NZ grows pine trees faster than any-where else on earth, so our destination is forestry & tourism.
Now please tell me why, no matter where you are, humans are not charged for their flatulence or exhaling..
If we account for trees growing and sequestering CO2, why do we not account for the grass growing and absorbing CO2?
they are both crops and both farmed.
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