Submission to the Climate Change Commission, NH
The next CCC submission we would like to share is from Methane Science Accord team member Neil Henderson:
Introduction:
I am a sheep and beef farmer in the high country west of Gisborne on a 404 hectare farm that has been in the family for 125 years. I have seen first hand the economic, social and environmental toll of climate change policy and have no desire to see it exacerbated with more rigorous emissions reduction targets.
The first issue I wish to address is the methane target.
The opening paragraph of your section on agriculture says it is responsible for 51% of this country’s emissions. We then see constant reference to emissions in the sector. But these emissions bear absolutely no relationship to warming. It is now acknowledged that methane is a short-lived gas and does not need to reduce to zero to be warming neutral. But where has it ever been quantified how much warming our livestock cause? How can anyone make a realistic target for methane without this information? Instead, we get targets based on the outdated emissions calculated using the flawed GWP 100 metric. I have known since a 2011 meeting on greenhouse gas metrics I attended, that was presented by IPCC authors, that this metric does not accurately calculate methane’s warming. The IPCC now acknowledges that in the case of stable livestock production, as is the case in New Zealand, it overstates warming by three or four times. So why is the Commission using such outdated metrics? It means all your projections and targets are flawed and worthless.
So let us look at our greenhouse gas inventory, even though it is compiled with a not fit for purpose metric. We see that methane emissions have been stable since 2005. Because of the short lived nature of methane it means methane is now breaking down as fast as new methane is added to the atmosphere. This means we are not changing the atmospheric concentration of methane so we are causing no additional warming. Livestock are net zero now so do not need to do anything else. End of story.
However, there are those who consider it is easier for farmers to reduce emissions than it is for other sectors to reduce theirs. But given the disconnect between emissions and warming, we need to answer the question of how much cooling would eventuate from our emissions reductions. Professor Dave Frame of Canterbury University has calculated, using GWP*, that the total warming from all our livestock since the first animals arrived here is a mere 1.4 thousandths of a degree. This is so small it cannot be measured. It would be absolutely pointless for livestock farmers to reduce emissions to meet our emissions reduction target because the effect on global temperature is so insignificant it is irrelevant.
The argument is also made that we need to reduce emissions because our markets demand it. That is solely the result of a lack of understanding about the short lived cyclical nature of methane and the lack of a relationship between emissions and warming. I have advocated for years that New Zealand, as the Annex One country with the highest level of methane emissions, should be leading the world in exposing this myth. This year Beef and Lamb has finally acknowledged this and agreed to trying to get the real science out there. The Climate Change Commission needs to do its part by acknowledging livestock do not cause warming when production is in a steady state as it is now.
My second point is about the use of forestry as an offset.
I am pleased to see that less is now needed because of the high planting rates of previous years. But why was it ever allowed in the first place? You cannot plant your way to carbon zero forever. The trees reach maturity and no more carbon is stored so more land is required until eventually there is none left!! It also erodes the economic base of this country which is so reliant on its livestock industry and reduces the earning capacity for future generations. There is also the environmental impact. I consider large scale conversion of farms to pines to be environmental vandalism.
I note you consider more of the future forests will be native. But because of their slow growth, many more hectares will be needed up front to sequester the same amount of carbon as pines do per year. Further, if much of this native planting is manuka, the ultimate amount stored per hectare will be much lower. You say there is still land that should be retired from farming. But what about all the good farm land that has already gone to pines due to the lack of restrictions on offsetting? There are three farms just in my valley in pines that do not have serious erosion problems. Should this land not be returned to food production to feed a hungry world?
Thirdly here are some miscellaneous points:
Increasing carbon dioxide levels are not all bad. Plants are thriving on the elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide levels meaning we produce more food from the same area.
Warmer temperatures are not all bad. Production on most farms is limited by the winter temperature. A warmer winter would mean more food produced on the same area of land and it is not a foregone conclusion any warmer summer temperatures will cancel this benefit.
Electric cars may be low emissions once on the road, but the batteries use large amounts of energy to construct, relative to an internal combustion engine.
Electric cars are heavier so cause more damage to roads.
The batteries need rare metals, the mining of which in some cases is very damaging to local environments.
Wind turbines need huge amounts of energy to build. The blades are an environmental problem when they need to be disposed of at the end of their life.
China and India are still increasing their emissions by far more than our total annual emissions so anything we do will do nothing to help global temperatures.
Conclusion:
All up I consider the whole emissions reduction pathway to be an expensive exercise in virtue signaling and the costs far outweigh benefits. It is a product of Group Think and the vested interests of those whose livelihoods depend on there being a problem.
We should continue to adapt to whatever the climate brings, be it warmer or cooler, wetter or drier, just as our ancestors have done since time began So be brave: call for the ditching of the 2050 target and let’s get on with making this country great again!!