13 Dairy’s beef impact worries Vol 16 No 13, April 3, 2017
farmersweekly.co.nz
Fart tax back? RESSURE is mounting internationally for New Zealand to not just reduce its agricultural emissions but to lead the way providing solutions for other countries, Climate Change Ambassador Mark Sinclair says. So NZ must take urgent action to tackle climate change, Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy told the Future of Agriculture Forum in Belgium on Thursday. “Farmers worldwide are realising they will need to produce more safe and nutritious food while operating within increasingly tight environmental constraints.” NZ was working for a 50% increase in nitrogen efficiency, a 20% rise in phosphate efficiency, reducing nutrient losses and protecting waterways. “In my opinion farmers and growers are naturally environmentalists. They want to leave the land in a better state than they found it. “We also must take urgent action to tackle climate change. “NZ is also keen to be a part of setting the global economy on a pathway to a low-emission future under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change,” Guy, who spoke after former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan, said. And the urgency being shown by governments and people around the world was intensifying, Sinclair told the Agricultural
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We also must take urgent action to tackle climate change. Nathan Guy Minister
LEADER: Other countries are looking to New Zealand to come up with ways of tackling farm animal greenhouse gas emissions, Climate Change Ambassador Mark Sinclair says.
were buying into the urgency. Governments, businesses and stakeholders had embedded the core elements of the Paris deal and that action was considered irreversible though uncertainty remained about the pace, ambition and solidarity of change. “It is broadly accepted the livestock sector will have to make
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a large contribution to NZ’s climate change response,” Sinclair said. There was widespread international recognition of the many threats climate change posed for farmers but agriculture was not well advanced and the issues were highly politicised so there was a very clear message
agricultural emissions had to be addressed. Many countries specifically wanted to engage with NZ, seeing it as a leader in technology and policy work on mitigation. “There was a sense of urgency in the approaches. “We can’t afford to undersell our role in the climate change debate.” The country’s brands could be affected by perception of its performance so it was really important for NZ to keep one eye on the global challenge and how it could contribute to policy and technology. “We really need a global response and we might be able to help engineer it,” Sinclair said. Beef + Lamb NZ chief executive Sam McIvor said NZ was one of the most emissions-efficient beef and lamb producers in the world and if it stopped producing, less efficient producers would take its place. Excluding agriculture from the ETS was pragmatic and sensible and farmers were motivated to change. Fonterra environment manager Francesca Eggleton said NZ dairy was also emissions-efficient. Its greenhouse gas footprint was less than half the global average.
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Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Conference in Palmerston North on Tuesday. But changes so far sequestered emissions rather than reducing them so a signal was needed in the form of increasing carbon prices and making charges for biological emissions of nitrous oxide and methane from animals, Motu Economic Research economist Dr Suzi Kerr told the conference. Incentives were also needed and Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Dr Jan Wright said she was pushing for looser rules on carbon forests to give them a broader, more inclusive definition. “If we can give credit, why not?” Wright said the ETS polarised opinion and had resulted in a stalemate but change was inevitable and would accelerate. “The longer we delay the more likely it is we will have an abrupt transition,” Wright said. Sinclair, a career diplomat and former ambassador to Japan who has negotiated climate deals talks for NZ, saw the Paris Agreement as a basic deal relying on nationally determined contributions, with negotiations on the rule book for it taking several years, but since it was signed it had become clear the game had changed. Countries wanted to fast track it and get it into force early so it took effect last November. “The fact we were able to bring it into force so quickly is much more about international opinion.” Public opinion was coalescing around the need to get serious about climate change and people