Comment: We need a global approach to agriculture, so that New Zealand farmers don't end up being the sacrificial lamb writes Federated Farmers climate change spokesman Andrew Hoggard.
Last month the COP 25 climate conference took place in Madrid.
In my opinion the only thing it achieved was to put more CO2 into the atmosphere by the ever-growing cast who wing their way to attend it.
I got the sense from afar through reading various releases, articles and tweets that more of the world's agricultural community is starting to push back on the simplistic view that it's fine to bundle methane in with the rest of the greenhouse gases.
It seems more people are understanding why this is wrong-headed; for example, a recent episode of the Joe Rogan podcast – and this is someone who is better known for discussing mixed martial arts – talked about the importance of pasture-based livestock systems.
Readers of my previous columns will know about the new metric being promoted that more accurately measures the actual warming impact of methane, as opposed to the current metric, which just assumes that a gas that has a half life of around 10 years has the same impact as a gas that lasts for hundreds.
This faulty metric ignores the fact that if emissions are static from a particular source then the concentration in the atmosphere from that source can't be increasing, so it won't be adding new warming.
Photo / File
Now, I'll give a tiny bit of credit to our Government that it recognised this concept in the Zero Carbon Bill, with a split gas approach. But it went with a target that farmers and others feel is well in excess of what is required for methane emissions from New Zealand agriculture to not add any additional warming.
Again, being sympathetic to the Government, from their point of view how can they adopt a metric that isn't in force around the globe?
So this needs to be our focus at COP 26: How should agricultural emissions be taken into account around the world.
The Paris Accord talks of ensuring food security but, to me, it really just seems to be an after-thought clause, and I think it's clear most countries aren't even that focused on their agriculture emissions.
What we need is a separate agreement that focuses solely on food production and feeding an increasing population, but with equal importance attached to doing it in a way that has a minimal impact on the environment.
Looking around the research on the new metric for measuring the actual warming impact of methane, the only criticism that can be found is one around fairness, not the science behind it.
The fairness argument has some justification, I think. The metric talks about the need for 0.3 per cent reductions in methane per year to achieve no additional or new warming but there is, of course, the historical warming that has been caused up to this point.
But how much of the increase in livestock emissions in the last couple of hundred years has been offset by reductions in other areas.
For example, the cattle in North America replaced wild ruminants. In New Zealand we drained wetlands, a natural source of methane emissions, so we could farm.
So what is the true increase in methane? Does the planet want to turn the clock back and return to some historical point, or are we happy with just maintaining the current position for now and not letting anything get worse?
Even if we said "let's just hold the line", it still raises challenges that needs some international thought because what does that look like at nation level.
For New Zealand, we have actually been achieving "holding the line" since 2006.
But what about a country like Zimbabwe that was once the bread basket of Africa, and now, (thanks to socialist corruption), is an importer of food. Are we saying they must stay put, and can't escape from poverty if they ever get leaders who aren't corrupt?
Say you were to give free passes to developing countries, then there is the challenge that often they are the ones with the highest footprint per kilogram of food produced, and countries like New Zealand have the lowest.
It is what they describe as a wicked problem, and New Zealand rushing off on its own with supposed solutions that are not realistic on the global stage isn't going to drive any meaningful change.
We need a global approach around agriculture, so that New Zealand farmers are not at a disadvantage and can in fact take a leadership position rather than be the sacrificial lamb.
