Simon Wilson: The idiotic ideas that dominate our climate debate

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern with, from left, ministers James Shaw, Damien O'Connor and Kieran McAnulty, announcing the new farm emissions plan. Photo / Mark Mitchell

OPINION:

Last Monday, the Government released an unambitious and curiously misguided plan for reducing farm emissions. It was attacked on all sides.

Andrew Hoggard, president of Federated Farmers, who was a member of the group that drew up the plan, said it would "rip the guts" out of small-town New Zealand. He sounded like he was auditioning for a role as cheerleader for the denialists of Groundswell.

The Climate Change Minister, Green Party co-leader James Shaw, took the unusual step of making it clear the stronger plan his party wanted had been voted down by Cabinet.

Also last week, Professor Mark Howden, Director of the Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions at the Australian National University, addressed a 2035 Oceania Summit on agriculture and food in Auckland. He told them, bluntly, that climate change has already reduced global agricultural production by 20 per cent.

"This isn't a 2050 scenario," he said. "This is right now."

Farm emissions contribute about half of New Zealand's total greenhouse gas emissions. The Government has decided to fold them into the Emissions Trading Scheme by 2025, but few people think the way it proposes to do this will lead to effective reductions.

Climate Change Minister James Shaw: Made it clear the Greens did not think the Government had chosen the best plan for farm emissions. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Why is it so hard to make progress on this? One reason is that all too often, the debate on farm emissions gets clogged up with ideas that are a little short of idiotic. Here are four of them.

1. Methane doesn't matter

Groundswell and others argue that because methane is short-lived in the atmosphere, it doesn't add to the total of greenhouse gases (GHG). We're pumping it in about as fast as it's dispersing out.

Methane is about 80 times more problematic than carbon and it's true, it does break up quickly.

But that means it offers a terrific opportunity to reduce the impact of greenhouse gases. If we can significantly limit methane emissions, GHG levels will fall more quickly than if we relied simply on reducing carbon.

The UN's climate summit in Glasgow last year recognised this, with a commitment to address the problem of industrial methane leaking from pipes and drilling sites.

Agricultural, or "biogenic", methane wasn't included in that agreement, but only because the politics were too hard. It's all methane.

And methane, more than any other gas, is how we can do our bit.

2. Sheep and beef are the problem

This is a brand new silly idea. The new scheme could lead to a 25 per cent reduction in sheep and beef farming but will have very little impact on dairy.

Why? It's not because sheep and beef are a bigger worry. On the contrary, it's because dairy enjoys protected status.

That's despite the disproportionate contribution it makes, not only to emissions but to a range of other ecological problems in rural New Zealand.

3. Technology will save us

Waiting for a tech fix for big dairy?

Technology created industrial dairying in the first place. Why think it will now resolve the problems that came with it?

National Party leader Christopher Luxon has argued that technology will make a difference. This is undoubtedly true. You'd have to be particularly stupid not to grasp that technology is always changing our world, in a myriad little ways and in big disruptive ways too.

But it doesn't follow we should just sit back and hope for a tech fix. Who knows what might happen?

Dairy cows in a paddock near Palmerston North. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The idea of tech salvation pervades many of the attempts to block climate action in New Zealand. But it has so many flaws.

Some tech progress is really slow. We're told constantly that New Zealand has the most efficient farming in the world, and in most ways that matter, it's true. There has been progress and perhaps one day there will be a major breakthrough.

But it should be manifestly clear we can't rely on it. Besides, how long are we going to wait? We know that if we're to keep global warming even to "manageable" proportions, we have to reduce emissions this decade.

Tech salvation is problematic in all parts of the climate-crisis response. In some parts of Europe, whole farms are now smothered in solar panels. Does that sound like a good idea?

Or what about biofuels, which are added to fossil fuels to make the fuel burn cleaner. From the fuel and automobile industries' point of view, they're little more than a mechanism to keep us driving polluting cars.

And then there are electric vehicles, which have upsized the vehicle fleet, because manufacturers are focused on large SUVs and utes instead of the smaller cars they could be mass producing. Meanwhile, data from overseas suggests that when people think it's "morally acceptable" to drive, they do it more.

The result of both these trends: more congestion and more people killed and seriously injured on the roads.

One of the most egregious aspects of the tech salvation argument is that it's applied so selectively. There is a transport technology that could make a material difference to this country's emissions, it's extremely cheap compared to the other options, and it's already becoming popular overseas.

Denver, Colorado, for example, has a scheme that offers up to US$1700 (NZ$3000) financial assistance to people wanting to make the switch. It's means tested, so the policy bakes equity into the city's climate response.

The technology is e-bikes. While Labour and National squabble about the best way to spend billions on public transport projects and how to design a decent feebate scheme for EVs, where's the support for the much cheaper e-bike option?

The great seductive appeal of tech salvation is that it promises us we don't have to do anything. We don't have to change our lives and we don't need to give anything up.

But this isn't true. All the mechanisms in the world for managing emissions won't help unless they help us reduce emissions. Not design new ways to keep using "cleaner fossil fuels". Not make tiny improvements to farming practices.

We have to give up fossil fuels. As soon as we can. It will take time, which is why we have to get serious about it now.

Put all of this together and the very worst thing about tech salvation becomes clear. The aim is not to stop global warming.

It's to invent ways that some people can live protected lives, eating food created artificially in laboratories, while the rest of us take our chances in the ecologically ravaged hellhole formerly known as planet Earth.

This is not far-fetched. It is exactly what will happen if we leave our climate response to the uber-wealthy and the tech wizards of Silicon Valley. They are not our saviours.

4. The market will save us

It's true market forces have a valuable in steering the economy away from emissions-producing technologies.

If it's more financially beneficial to plant trees than grow belching cows, for example, we'll get more trees. But if we tried to meet our net emissions targets that way, we'd have to cover half the North Island in trees. That's not going to happen.

Even more fantastical is the idea that the price of petrol can be used as a lever. Governments won't allow it.

The world is getting wilder. Photo / Getty Images

He Waka Eke Noa. It's the name of the farm-sector working group that came up with the Government's farm emissions plans, which Federated Farmers has now abandoned. It means: We're all in this together.

Good to know.

Effective climate action isn't easy but it is possible. If you'd like to hear how others are doing it, check out the programme of the Auckland Climate Festival, on all month all over the city.

I’m moderating a session in which activists from different walks of life tell their stories, 7pm Thursday October 27, at St Matthew-in-the-City.