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BRISBANE - New Zealand and Queensland will join forces in a scientific programme to attack two main sources of greenhouse gases - pastoral flatulence and coal-fired energy production.
Prime Minister Helen Clark and state Premier Peter Beattie yesterday agreed to accelerate transtasman action on climate change.
Helen Clark said New Zealand intended to push pastoral flatulence - gases expelled by farm animals as a digestion side effect - to the centre of world climate change debate.
She also said the Government would put $25 million over five years into the Australia New Zealand Biotechnology Partnership Fund that provides money for companies from both countries working to develop products for the global market.
And AgResearch and the University of Queensland said they would jointly finance a new chair in systems thinking and practice at the university's School of Natural and Rural Systems Management.
The new moves follow the decision by the Queensland and New Zealand Governments five years ago to push collaboration between researchers and biotech companies to create what Mr Beattie described as critical mass, enabling them to compete on world markets.
Wellington and Brisbane have signed a biotechnology collaboration agreement that yesterday was the focus of a transtasman meeting to examine the potential for a "strategic partnership" in biotechnology.
"We have a lot in common," Mr Beattie said yesterday after meeting Helen Clark during her five-day eastern states trade mission to boost access and potential partnerships in Australia for small and medium-sized New Zealand companies.
Mr Beattie said one of the key areas in his discussions with Helen Clark had been climate change and collaboration between Queensland and New Zealand scientists on clean coal technology and farm animal greenhouse gas emissions.
Helen Clark said New Zealand was well aware of the resources Queensland - and Australia in general - were putting into clean coal technology, a critical issue for Australia's coal-fired economy.
"This is an issue of interest for us because we do have 1000 years of coal reserves and we do export coal," she said.
In return, there would be gains for Queensland's large dairy and beef industries, from co-operation with New Zealand research into reducing pastoral greenhouse gas emissions.
"For New Zealand it's absolutely vital that we take international leadership on pastoral gas emissions," she said, "because they're taking up 50 per cent of our total emissions profile."
