Paper for Livestock Conference Spain
Inequities of Restricting Ruminant Methane Emissions in Worldwide Livestock Farming
A paper by Owen R Jennings, Farmer, company director, New Zealand. Former National President of Federated Farmers of NZ, and former Member of the New Zealand Parliament. Paper Outline:
Livestock farming, internationally, is not a cause of global warming and demands to reduce ruminant methane emissions are unscientific and unjust.
The uptake of CO2 in photosynthesis is biologically inseparable from ruminant emissions and must be offset in any emissions’ calculations
Allowing the use of GWP* in country assessments of methane emissions is a science-based and equitable first step in restructuring country Nationally Determined Contributions.
Calculating ruminant emissions worldwide must recognise the lack of a discernible livestock signal in global methane distribution and historical methane emission rates
A global initiative should be established to remove all claims to tax or curtail ruminant methane emissions from the IPCC purview and countries affected by livestock farming
Unhindered livestock food production is crucial for feeding the world’s population and the Association must take strong steps to oppose unnecessary restrictions
One of the most critically important developments in livestock farming, internationally, is the growing realisation that ruminant methane emissions are not source of problematic climate change. Recent scientific findings¹ coupled with a more principled appraisal of the established facts is resulting in strong demands to have ruminant eructation removed from all climate change taxing.
This paper proposes building an international constituency under the World Association for Sustainable Livestock Farming to have ruminant methane emissions removed from the purview of the Paris Agreement.
The reality is that ruminants are not warming the planet in any measurable or troublesome manner. To the contrary, most livestock farms are carbon neutral with the majority removing and sequestering more Greenhouse Gas than they emit².
This contrasts with calls from Greenpeace and other NGO’s for a 50% reduction in livestock by 2050. This attack on food production is unnecessary and intolerable. It must be opposed vigorously.
In many countries it is farmers who are leading the movement to have the Paris Agreement of 2015 restructured to remove any direct or indirect reference to ruminant methane emissions.
The Agreement failed to adequately recognise the unique nature of methane and its short life span.
The demand to restructure the Paris Agreement is underpinned by recent science from a number of sources, especially those studying spectroscopic characteristics of greenhouse gases, that prove that all methane emissions are dominated by water vapour in its multiple phases and are too minor to make any measurable impact on climate³. It is not the intention of this paper to focus on these issues except to note that criticism of these findings by scientists and media commentators who are implacably wedded to the mantra of catastrophic climate change are biased and unconvincing.
This paper focuses on the practical aspects of ruminant methane research pointing out what can only be described as misuse of scientific research and, often, deliberate deceptive or manipulated findings. This fraudulence is negatively impacting public policy outcomes and is bringing livestock farming into disrepute. The deceptions have been seized on by the mainstream media and are, too often, grossly exaggerated and sensationalised in an absurd manner.
There are several factors that this paper covers that substantiate the claim of fraud, exaggeration and manipulation.
Firstly, farmers are angry that the IPCC and relevant authorities arbitrarily separate CO2 used by plants and pastures in photosynthesis from ruminant methane emissions for accounting and regulating purposes, even though the two are biologically inseparable. The age-old natural carbon cycle is ignored. Only gross emissions are used in policy making.
Note: Livestock farming and rice growing are the only two main biological activities that require one greenhouse gas to produce another.
This contrasts with the IPCC’s dismissal of the three billion tonnes of human CO2 emissions on account of the natural carbon cycle⁴. Yet the very same biological processes pertain in ruminant animals. The very same carbon cycle operates. The stated position that ruminants emit a different Greenhouse Gas is irrelevant. In natural situations that involve inseparable biological processes only the net outcome should be recognised.
Over 60 countries deliberately subsidise tree planting for the purpose of using the natural photosynthesis process to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, yet farmers are penalised while relying on exactly the same natural process. This inconsistency is not lost on the farming community.
This hypocritical stance seems to have been manipulated by fossil fuel use defenders seeking a diversion to reduce the focus on their issues.
The reality is that when ruminants are credited with the CO2 taken out of the atmosphere in the photosynthesis process there is a net balance in favour of the environment. Farming livestock uses more Green House Gas than it emits. Livestock farming is at net zero and carbon neutral. This is true of pastoral and indoor farming, worldwide.
Example:
Inputs: Annual uptake of CO2 by photosynthesis on a typical New Zealand dairy farm: 97.2 kg/day × 365 = 35,478 kg CO₂/year per hectare → 35.5 tonnes CO₂/year per hectare
Outputs:
Methane eructated at 3 cows /ha: 330 kg CH₄ × 28 = 9,240 kg CO₂-e/year per hectare → 9.2 tonnes CO₂-e/year per hectare
Respired by 3 cows: (6,137 litres of CO₂ per day/cow = 12.13 kilograms of carbon dioxide daily through respiration) 13.17t CO₂
Meat, milk manure, etc losses – minor. 3.0 t CO₂
Wastage, spoilage, soil sequestration etc 4.5 t CO₂
35.5 – (9.2 + 13.17 + 3.0 + 4.5) = 5.63
(Note these figures have significant margins for error)That is 5.63 tonnes more of Green House Gas absorbed by photosynthesis than is released by cattle. On a molecule-by-molecule basis only 3% of the gas used in photosynthesis gets to go back into the atmosphere from eructation.
The numbers vary between farms and for indoor livestock farms the numbers are different, but the outcome is the same – livestock farming as a total activity is net zero now and always has been.
In an open pasture situation CO2 is used by plants in the photosynthesis process to provide new leaf material – the food ruminants digest. Methane can only be emitted if CO2 is harnessed from the atmosphere first – there can be no methane emissions from ruminants unless substantial amounts of CO2 are removed first.
Furthermore, the role of methanotrophs, farm vegetation and soil sequestration are typically ignored in the accounting processes. The simple reality is that livestock farming is carbon neutral, or is in most cases, actually sequestering significantly more carbon than is being emitted.
The second issue deals with what is now proven science, not disputed or contradicted and even accepted in the most recent IPCC report – AR6.
It concerns the methodology used for measuring warming effect. Earlier IPCC reports used the GWP100 formula for measuring all methane emissions but this system can only realistically be used for cumulative emissions where the GHG persists in the atmosphere for an extended period of time.
Methane is a short-lived gas. It is mostly gone in nine years and only minute traces exist after twelve years.
The research work of the Oxford University’s Oxford Martin School under Dr Myles Allen and Dr Michelle Cain showed very clearly and unmistakably that when emissions of a short-lived gas, like methane are static or falling, the accepted measurement of GWP100 can give a totally erroneous outcome – as much a 300 – 400% overstatement of actual warming capability. They designed a new method for measuring short-lived gas emissions called GWP*.
The IPCC administrator’s reluctance to fully accept these findings and allow countries to use them in their Nationally Determined Contributions is reprehensible. Their arguments are weak. Farmers are left to believe this reticence can only be driven by bias coming from groups like Greenpeace. Unfortunately, the imposition of taxing regimes and demands for curtailment of ruminant methane emissions is driven more from ideology and political bias than sound, factual science.
The equitable and accurate way to look at the emissions’ warming capability in a country like New Zealand where ruminant emissions have been falling since 2015 is shown in the diagram below.
There is a growing divergence that is creating a totally false picture of our farmer’s contribution to actual warming leading to their denigration in the public’s mind and undue pressure to adopt expensive, mitigation tools.
An interim step among this Association’s objectives seeking the restructuring of the Paris Agreement would be to have GWP* applied in countries with a falling or stable livestock emissions profile.
Thirdly, the annual increase in all ruminant numbers across the planet is somewhere between 0.3% and 0.5% p.a. – a minor amount well inside the margin of error. Livestock methane emissions are insignificant in the global methane budget. The masses of omnipresent methanotrophic bacteria in most pasture ecosystems and on tree trunks represent a methane sink alone. Further many soils are sequestering significant amounts of CO2 – a factor largely ignored.
As methane is a short-lived gas, disappearing inside twelve years, the amount of additional ruminant methane emissions is exceedingly minor – so minor the temperature impact is immeasurable and can only be calculated in a few millionths of one degree per year. It is only additions of Greenhouse Gas that can impact temperature as there is, at any moment, as much ruminant methane disappearing through oxidisation as is entering from eructation. It is an absurdity of Kafkaesque proportions to even contemplate the infinitesimal amount of possible warming caused by ruminant methane entering the atmosphere. Farmers treat the claims with the derision they deserve.
While the IPCC and national governments count all emissions and refuse to count those disappearing through oxidisation there is a serious deception being perpetrated. IPCC data shows that 595 million metric tonnes of methane are produced per year, (ruminants account for 27%) but 570 million tonnes (96%) were oxidised. Therefore, only an insignificant 4% of emissions actually add to global methane levels. This has not been accounted for. Farmers deserve greater integrity.
The only rational explanation is that New Zealand farmers and other livestock farmers are technically helping to cool the planet or more accurately slow down the rate of warming. Yet our Government, our bureaucrats, some scientists and the powerful green lobby groups keep claiming that farming is responsible for over half the country’s emissions. This deception brings livestock farming into unnecessary disrepute.
Fourthly, a detailed analysis of the trends in all methane emissions over the last fifty years indicates that there have been significant periods where there has been a significant reduction in the amount of methane recorded entering the atmosphere. There have been a number of unproven explanations for this but what is overlooked – probably deliberately - is that if the often-claimed rising levels of ruminant methane are problematic, what happened to livestock eructations over that time?
Unsurprisingly, neither the geographical methane distribution (as measured and averaged over time by satellite), nor the average historical methane evolution, bear any noticeable livestock fingerprint.
Food Security:
Third World countries, very rightly, led a strong campaign at the formulation of the Paris Agreement in 2015 to have an exclusion clause included to ensure that climate adaptation and low-emission development do not compromise food production. It is part (b) of Clause 2 of the Agreement.
Farming organisations supported this intervention. It was heavily opposed by some biased scientists and misguided green organisations who continue to demand up a 50% reduction in all domestic ruminant livestock despite there being no scientific or moral reason to do so. The suggestion that the world can be fed without livestock is untenable, impractical and potentially causes major health problems with massive dislocation of farming families.
This conference and the Association must take the strongest steps possible to oppose any cutbacks and encourage the livestock industry to continue its continued success in feeding growing populations.
Mitigation:
Substantial amounts of taxpayer’s and industry dollars are being spent on research for mitigation tools for a problem that does not exist. In fact, a whole industry of scientists, technocrats and bureaucrats has arisen around the world, kept in business by this non-existing issue.
Research centres and private enterprise are spending vast amounts of money including scarce public funds on seeking safe mitigation methods. New Zealand has spent over $200 per person or 0.3% of its GDP for no obvious gain.
So far, this expenditure has achieved nothing but farmers face having to use products including boluses that use toxic ingredients that would otherwise be banned and definitely are in some countries, especially from animals producing meat and milk.
Our consumers of livestock products may have reservations about using our meat and milk when there is no mitigation method in place, but it is a safe bet that they will be even more likely to reject them if they know that toxic ingredients are involved and that animals may have up to a dozen plastic casings in their gut.
Farmers face the potentially dangerous demand to force boluses down the throat of mature animals or vaccinate them on a regular basis. When there is no measurable gain from instigating such remedies, farmers will refuse to cooperate. In New Zealand a recent large survey showed 94% of farmers are committed to not using methane inhibitors.
These proposals for inhibitors force livestock farmers into additional cost and inconvenience, endanger them and their staff, trying to treat large animals and give end consumers of our products another excuse to refuse to purchase them, turning them to synthetics and other alternatives.
New developments:
New research and actual trialling shows soil management changes can lead to boosting soil microbes to significantly improve sequestration of CO2⁵. A product out of Australia is increasing soil organic matter (SOM) well beyond what was considered possible under conventional means. SOM, on a farm that undergoes regular soil disturbance, has gone from 0.58% to 2.61% after two years. That equates to 90 metric tonnes of carbon per hectare or 330 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide per hectare sequestered in two years.
The application of ground basalt rock enhances carbon sequestration⁶. Its use is becoming more widespread across the UK, USA, Australia and Europe.
The wider adoption of organic farming, use of deeper rooting plants, crop and animal rotation, integration of trees into the farm plan and improving soil microbial activity are assisting in sequestration of carbon on a material basis.
Where these methods contribute to improved outputs, they should be encouraged but livestock farmers should not be under any obligation to adopt such practises to offset methane emissions.
Future Action:
There is strength in numbers. If farmers are appraised of the facts and understand they are not creating any problem in the climate they need to band together to fight any form of taxing or cutbacks. Livestock farmers need to regain control of the ruminant methane narrative.
This paper proposes that farmers around the globe should unite under the World Association for Sustainable Livestock Farming and take a well-argued case for the restoration of justice and equity to the relevant world bodies and require ruminant methane emissions to be withdrawn from any calculations and taxing proposals. Such an initiative may not necessarily involve existing and formal farmer organisations as in many countries these representative groups are usually unwilling to take a strong stand against the false science.
New Zealand interests, as one of the most affected of any country, is willing to take the lead and help the Association coordinate an approach to the IPCC for equity and redress.
Farmers already meet the Paris Agreement’s goals and should not countenance restrictive measures that reduce outputs. Their commitment to feed a hungry world hugely exceeds any suggestion that a few millionths of a degree of warming may cause any problem.
The initial effort needs to centre on changing the clause 2 (b) of the Paris Agreement that relates to not taking any mitigation steps “that ……threaten food production.” It must be restructured to take precedence over any reduction targets. The adoption of GWP* would be a useful second step. Further measures must follow to completely exclude any restrictions of ruminant methane emissions.
Conclusion and Recommendation:
The World Association for Sustainable Livestock Farming agree to take strong and effective steps to have ruminant methane emissions removed from any restrictions under the Paris Agreement.
“The ruminant animal: A small fermentation unit which gathers the raw material, transfers it to the fermentation chamber, and regulates its further passage, continuously absorbs the fermentation products, and transforms them into a few valuable substances such as meat and milk. To these advantages must be added the crowning adaptation: the unit replicates itself.”
Addendum:
“There are three distinct sources of uncertainty in global climate change projections — (1) internal variability uncertainty, (2) model uncertainty, and (3) scenario uncertainty. This uncertainty can lead to variations of up to 50% in some published data.” - Singapore Metrological Service.
“The basic assumptions in the narrative that ruminant methane emissions are problematic reveal severe methodological deficiencies:
(1) Uncertainties of significant magnitude associated with the climate sensitivity of anthropogenic GHG-emissions have been ignored;
(2) Inconsistencies in the way land use changes (deforestation) in emission intensity calculations (per unit of product) can be detected in the literature;
(3) The virtual lack of a discernible livestock signal in global methane distribution and historical methane emission rates has not been acknowledged
(4) Potential substrate induced enhancement of methane breakdown rates have not been taken into consideration.
”
Between 1990 and 2007, the global cattle and buffalo population rose by more than 125 million head, or by 9% (FAO: http://faostat.fao.org/site/291/default.aspx), while the growth rate of atmospheric methane fell to zero (NO-AA: www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi). These empirical observations are hardly consistent with a domestic livestock contribution to anthropogenic methane emissions of 35–40% as claimed by Steinfeld et al.(2006).
References
¹ Dependence of Earth's Thermal Radiation on Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases - W. A. van Wijngaarden, W. Happer: https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.03098 Saturation of the Infrared Absorption by Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere. Schildknecht, D. (2020) International Journal of Modern Physics B, 34, Article 2050293.² Methane Production in Dairy Cows – E. H. C. Garcia
https://pub.epsilon.slu.se/14234/7/cabezas-garcia_e_170410.pdf ³ The Impact of CO₂, H₂O and Other “Greenhouse Gases” on Equilibrium Earth Temperatures - David Coe, Walter Fabinski, Gerhard Wiegleb⁴ IPCC Ar6. - 5.1.1, 2.2.3⁵ IPCC. AR6: 6.5.2.1 Enhanced Carbon Sequestration by Land Ecosystems⁶ https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/climate/articles/10.3389/fclim.2019.00007/full#B27https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2017.0149B+LNZ Knowledge Hub: www.knowledgehub.co.nz