August - September 2021
Can a vaccine for cattle help the dairy sector cut methane emissions? Agriculture is responsible for 43% of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions and our 6.3 million cows contribute to over half of this - a crucial problem we must address if we are to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050
ENVIRONMENT
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New Zealand's net-zero struggle New Zealand is one of the few countries with a net-zero goal which exempts methane emissions from agriculture and waste. Methane is the second-most prevalent GHG from human-related activities after carbon dioxide, accounting for 20% of global emissions. Methane however is 25 times more powerful in trapping heat than carbon dioxide. This raises the question if New Zealand is on the right track to achieve net-zero as it has excluded biological methane, which makes over 40% of the country's GHG emissions. 52 infrastructurenews.co.nz
Instead, the Government has established a less ambitious goal of reducing methane emissions by 25% to 47% by 2050, compared to 2017 levels. The Government has given the agricultural sector the freedom to establish its methods for measuring and pricing emissions. In 2022, it will assess progress and, if necessary, may bring agriculture into the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) before 2025. There remains considerable work to be done towards helping the farmers reduce emissions if New Zealand wants to deliver on net-zero commitments.
ivestock like cattle, sheep, and goats generate methane as part of their normal digestion process. The majority of methane is released when the cattle burps. Cattle flatulence levels in New Zealand have increased by 62.6% since 1990 as our number of cows have hit 6.3 million. The Climate Change Commission see herd numbers dropping in its chosen pathway to net-zero emissions, but this misses the point. New Zealand's dairy industry is the world's 8th largest milk producer and exports more than 95% of the milk produced in the country, contributing $7.4 billion to GDP. Our dairy industry also has the lowest carbon footprint, as found in a study commissioned by Dairy NZ. We produce 0.77 kg of CO2e every kilogramme of milk - 48% less than the global average of 1.47 kg CO2e per kilogramme of milk. Reducing our milk production does not reduce demand. The milk will simply be produced somewhere else in the world at a greater cost to the environment. The Climate Change Commission’s solution only shifts the problem somewhere else at the cost of
