Methane Madness Infects New Zealand Government

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New Zealand has a lot of farm animals — sheep and cattle being the primary species. Their “products” — milk, lamb chops, steaks, and wool — are a significant component of the country’s economy. That’s all well and good, except those animals are ruminants. What is a ruminant? Glad you asked. Google has the answer:

“A ruminant is a herbivorous mammal, like a cow, sheep, or deer, that digests its food in a unique two-step process involving “chewing the cud.” They first swallow food, which is then stored in a large stomach compartment called the rumen, where it is partially digested by microbes. The animal then regurgitates this partially digested food, chews it again to break it down further, and swallows it again for the rest of the digestive process.”

That is all as nature intended, but a planetary problem occurs in the rumen. While those microbes are doing their work, methane is a byproduct which gets expelled into the atmosphere where it contributes to global heating. That’s not much of a problem if we are talking about one animal, but New Zealand has nearly 24 million sheep and almost 10 million cattle.

Having 34 million ruminants moseying about while chewing their cud means they add a significant amount of methane to the atmosphere. Half of greenhouse gas emissions in New Zealand come from the agriculture industry and about 85% of those are from methane.

New Zealand Lurches To The Right

Kiwis, as New Zealanders are called, inhabit some of the most pristine land in all the world. The Lord Of The Rings movies were filmed there because the landscape is the closest thing the producers could find to the Middle Earth Tolkien described in his books. They are fierce competitors in international sailing competition, as anyone who follows the America’s Cup series knows.

They also had a reputation as one of the more progressive nations in the world when Jacinda Ardern was prime minister, but now the same authoritarian forces that have propelled people like Boris Johnson, Viktor Orban, and America’s own fascist dictator into positions of power have infected political life in New Zealand.

When Ardern was in power, the government set a target or reducing methane emission in 2050 by half at the most and a quarter at the least. Methane is 80 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, so limiting the amount of it that escapes into the atmosphere is vital if the Earth is to have a chance at remaining inhabitable by humans in 2050.

Reduced Climate Ambitions

But the government of prime minister Christopher Luxon has taken a sledgehammer to the methane reduction target established by his predecessor and introduced a new phrase into the global heating debate — “no additional warming.” Under the new targets, methane emissions from the country will be reduced by 14 to 24% below 2017 levels by 2050.

Writing for Bloomberg News, Tracy Withers reports the New Zealand government claims the reduced target balances the need for lower methane emissions against protecting food production and exports. The previous target, it says, risked putting some farmers out of business. But scientists said it is inconsistent with the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

The new policy seeks to prevent methane from contributing any further to global warming rather than to reduce its impact, James Renwick, professor of physical geography at Victoria University in Wellington told Withers and added that it is “a major step backwards in ambition and in climate action.” So, as the Earth gets hotter and hotter, New Zealand thinks it is smart to do less and less to offset the rise in temperature. “Just go back to sleep, everyone. We got this. Everything’s gonna be fine.”

It is all well and good to protect industries, until there are no consumers left to buy your products — a concept that seems to elude the grasp of Luxon and his cronies. CleanTechnica readers may see an echo of this muddled thinking in the campaign by US automakers to roll back exhaust emission standards.

“It’s too hard! It’s too expensive!! It will reduce our profits!!!” Actually, what will really reduce their profits is when their business practices exterminate their customer base. The corporate world prioritizes profits even when they promote the suicide of the human race. Is that what they teach in B School these days?

There are concerns that other nations could follow New Zealand’s lead, such as Ireland, where the Climate Change Advisory Council has recommended targets aimed at “temperature neutrality.” That recommendation has yet to be formally adopted.

“New Zealand is setting a dangerous precedent that other governments must not follow,” said Paul Behrens, British Academy Global Professor at University of Oxford in the UK. “Cutting methane — a short-lived but highly potent greenhouse gas — is not an optional extra. It will deliver the rapid reductions in warming needed to avoid dangerous tipping points.”

“No Additional Warming” Is A Scam

Earlier this year, a report requested by the government concluded that if the rest of the world rapidly adjusts its climate policies to meet the Paris goal, then a “no additional warming” approach would require New Zealand to cut its methane emissions by 24% by 2050. But in a scenario where global emissions do not decline rapidly, that approach would require only a 15% reduction because global temperatures would be higher.

Does that seem like sound reasoning to you? If the rest of the world gets serious about emissions, we’ll think about doing so too, but until then, we are just going to keep on keeping on and hope for the best. That sounds suspiciously like the captain of the Titanic hoping another iceberg will come along and repair the damage to the fractured hull.

In July, a group of 26 scientists from around the world wrote an open letter to prime minister Christopher Luxon warning against the approach, saying it ignores scientific advice. “It implies that current methane emissions levels are acceptable. They are not,” the group wrote, but to no avail. The government not only lowered the methane target but also said it will not impose a tax on farm emissions, which was part of the previous plan before the government took a hard lurch to the right.

New Zealand should maintain its commitment to a 35 to 47% reduction in methane emissions by 2050, Mark Howden, an emeritus professor at the Australian National University and a vice chair on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told Aaron Clark and Leslie Kaufman of Bloomberg Green.

“Countries adopting a similar pathway of pulling back on methane pledges would likely increase global temperatures by 0.2 degrees Celsius,” which would “generate climate changes that would be problematic for agriculture across the globe. Every ton of methane emitted makes the world warmer than it would otherwise be. By contrast the concept of “no additional warming” is scientifically problematic and difficult for policy and the public to interpret.”

Farm Advocates Celebrate

Farmer groups, of course, were delighted by the change in policy. “Farmers have been bogged down in completely unscientific, unaffordable and unrealistic climate policy for far too long,” said Wayne Langford, president of Federated Farmers. “At times it’s felt like absolute madness that we’d even be talking about policies that would shut down farms, send production offshore, and completely undermine New Zealand’s economy.”

The meat and dairy industries also pushed rejected any suggestion that the government was being too lenient. “This is by no means letting agriculture off the hook,” said Kate Acland, chair of Beef + Lamb New Zealand. “While our sector has made significant progress on reducing warming emissions, the revised targets, particularly the upper end of the range, will still be very challenging.”

Push-Back

But political opponents were outraged. “Halving of methane targets under the guise of “no additional warming” is a cheap accounting trick that will cost our country dearly,” said opposition Green Party co-leader Chloe Swarbrick. “This methane denial betrays farmers who are on the front line of climate-driven extreme weather events that threaten global food production and rural livelihoods.”

Swarbrick has a point. Farmers all around the world are facing challenges from punishing heat, reduced rainfall, too much rain, and rising costs for pesticides and fertilizers. Hey, New Zealand, we are all in the same tiny blue lifeboat in a minor galaxy at the far edge of the universe. We all need to do our part, particularly at a time when the United States is shirking its responsibilities. This assuming the world will be fine if we do next to nothing will be the death of us all.