By accepting the agriculture sector's arguments hook, line and sinker, the Climate Change Commission has missed a big chance and failed the nation, writes Rod Oram
The Climate Change Commission’s final recommendation to the government is a Minimum Viable Product. It offers enough to help early adopters work on decarbonising the economy. But it is neither compelling nor ambitious enough to trigger the much bigger, deeper, quicker response the climate crisis demands of all of us.
Worse, even an MVP might be too hard for us. Based on their performance to date, politicians are divided and weak leaders on climate; public servants can’t devise and implement inter-connected policies and programmes; and too few businesses and consumers are deeply committed to transformational change.
Like good MVPs, though, this one sketches out the future; and it’s an improvement on the Commission’s draft recommendations four months ago.
Working with the wealth of submissions it received, the Commission has identified where it underestimated the potential for emission reductions (such as in buildings) and overestimated (such as in agriculture.)
A warning about the latter. The Commission has swallowed agricultural leaders’ claims hook, line and sinker. These are simultaneously defiant (‘we’re already the best in the world’) yet defeatist (‘we can’t cut methane much’). Both claims are dead wrong, as shown by local and international examples below.
Then the Commission ran its updates through rigorous models to test them; and adjusted its recommendations accordingly. It has also produced a lot of helpful new work, particularly in the latter half of its 418-page report. This consists of 10 chapters of “policy direction” across all major areas of the economy and society. These lay out the themes and issues the Commission advises the government to incorporate in the vast suite of policies, programmes and regulations it will have to map out in its Emissions Reduction Plan it is required by law to deliver by the end of the year.
The Commission did slightly increase emission reductions in the first few of the 14 years covered by its report. But that was only to respond to the latest increase in our greenhouse gas inventory in 2017-19.
“Overall, this added up to a similar level of ambition to our 2021 Draft Advice for Consultation,” the Commission said.
Thus, the Commission failed to respond to calls from many submitters for much greater ambition. The strength of these views is tabulated in the responses to “The Six Big Decisions” the Commission put to the public. These polled people’s views on whether its proposed carbon budgets and policy proposals were adequate for the job, and achievable, fair and equitable; and whether its recommended changes to our UN commitment were adequate for meeting the goal of a 1.5C rise in temperature.
The public support for faster action on climate is also clear in the just-released fourth annual climate poll by IAG, the insurer. Only 23 percent of respondents said NZ was moving fast enough, down from 28 percent last year. Similarly, 41 percent said we weren’t moving fast enough to have a “real impact on climate change,” up from 34 percent a year earlier.
The Commission’s biggest problem, though, was its failure to rectify a fundamental flaw in its draft recommendations. That was was its complete silence on ‘Nature-based Solutions’. There is a wealth of evidence from the UN, conservationists, other scientists, NGOs, farmers, agribusinesses and some businesses and governments for the climate and ecosystems benefits they offer. For example, the World Wildlife Fund says:
“Nature itself has a big role to play. Evidence increasingly suggests that nature-based solutions—natural systems or processes used to help achieve societal goals—could contribute mightily to minimising climate change and its effects. In fact, research shows that nature-based solutions and the broader land sector could contribute up to 30 percent of the climate mitigation needed by 2050 to meet the Paris Agreement’s objective of limiting global warming.”
This has to be core to our climate responses. After all, as I wrote in an earlier column:
- New Zealand has one of the largest stocks of natural capital per capita of any nation other than oil and gas producers, according to the World Bank.
- Natural capital is our largest single source of exports and it generates some 15 percent of our GDP.
- Natural capital is one of the four capitals, with Social, Human and Financial/Physical, our government uses for its Living Standards Framework, and the Wellbeing Budgets and fiscal strategies flowing from it.
- Half our greenhouse gas emissions come from biological processes in farming; and forests are our main carbon sinks.
In other words, if we use natural solutions to help us solve the climate crisis, our actions will help our much degraded ecosystems recover and become more resilient and productive. Thus, we will increase our natural capital, with which we can improve our economic, environmental, social and cultural wellbeing. On our current track, we’re heading in the opposite direction because we’re depleting and damaging our natural capital.
In its final recommendations, the Commission makes one fleeting reference to Nature-based Solutions, citing sequestering of carbon in soil as an example. But it said the science and practice of sequestration was too uncertain and difficult to measure. Thus it excluded it as a tool and didn’t make it a research priority as a future solution.
This is just one example of the Commission’s agricultural myopia. Its entire approach to the sector’s emissions, which account for almost half our nation’s greenhouse gases, is predicated on the sector sticking with its existing technologies for the next couple of decades. Worse, the Commission concedes, dairy and meat production will likely decline slightly.
The simple illogicality of this eludes the Commission. Any sector worldwide failing to adopt new technology for the next two decades will suffer a precipitous fall in production. It will never survive the decarbonisation of economies and society.
The Commission’s only hope for agricultural technology change is expressed in a few brief references to methane inhibitors or vaccines for our ruminant animals. But even if they eventuated, consumers would likely reject their use as antithetical to our brand of pure and natural food.
Yet, the Commission is aware of our great methane liability, as for example in this graph of New Zealand’s climate warming in its final recommendations:
And in its comments such as these:
“Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas and is responsible for around a sixth of human-caused warming that has occurred to date."
“Simply maintaining the current level of warming from methane is not enough, as it would require the world to reach net zero carbon dioxide by 2030 to keep warming below 1.5C. We consider this to be infeasible and consequentially that the global warming contribution from methane must be reduced if the global 1.5C effort is to be successful.”
“The country’s relatively efficient food production and a growing global population suggests Aotearoa might be expected to take a smaller than average reduction in biogenic methane. However other factors, such as increasing awareness of the environmental impact of animal based products and local environmental challenges, would suggest that Aotearoa could make a greater than average reduction in biogenic methane.”
“There is a role for agricultural products from Aotearoa in a low-emissions future, both for the nutrition it can provide and the valuable natural products such as wool. However, to create and maintain the market for those products, Aotearoa needs to be able to demonstrate their genuine climate, environmental, social and cultural credentials.”
Such judgments by the Commission align with the climate strategies of leading food producers in the world such as Nestlé, Unilever, Danone and General Mills. But whereas they all place regenerative agricultural principles at the heart of their responses, the Commission dismisses them:
“Regenerative farming systems often have some similar characteristics to organic farms, though with fewer input controls. We heard considerable interest in regenerative agriculture during consultation, but there is not yet a robust evidence base to understand the emissions benefits of regenerative farming in Aotearoa, nor a credible certification market for products.”
Meanwhile, this is what some of our competitors are up to in the real world:
In 2019, Nestlé committed to halving its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and to being net zero by 2050. Its regenerative agricultural strategy is central to it, with such ambitious goals as investing US$1.2 billion in regen ag by 2025 and buying 14 million tonnes of ingredients produced from regen farmers by 2030.
“Our work will help the half a million farmers we directly and indirectly purchase ingredients from adopt sustainable practices and enhance livelihoods. It will also help create economic opportunities in rural communities and protect food security.”
Unilever is even more ambitious. Its goal is net zero emissions across its entire supply chain by 2039, with regen ag playing a central role.
Shareholders of Nestlé and Unilever gave near unanimous approval to these strategies and goals at their AGMs in April and May respectively.
And similarly, regen ag is a key to the sustainability strategies of Danone, a major competitor of Fonterra, and General Mills, to cite just two further examples.
Yet, Fonterra and its farmers have yet to set a methane reduction target, even though they account for more than 20 percent of Aotearoa’s entire emissions. Since 71.4 percent of Nestlé’s emissions are from its sourcing of ingredients, no doubt it is taking a keen interest in the resistance of Fonterra, one of its major suppliers, to change.
But while Fonterra, DairyNZ, Beef+Lamb, Federated Farmers and our other dairy and meat industry ‘leaders’ are suffering from institutional sclerosis, there is a rapidly growing cohort of farmers and scientists proving regenerative farming works. This is by far our biggest, most powerful opportunity to use Nature-based Solutions to help solve the climate crisis.
You can find these true leaders in places such as the the Primary Sector Council's Fit For A Better World strategy. Our Land and Water National Science Challenge, Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research, Quorum Sense, Calm the Farm, Āta Regenerative and the Pure Advantage / Edmund Hillary Fellowship regen ag project. (Disclosure: I contributed to the project.)
Yet, in contrast to Nestle’s ability to work with half a million farmers to contribute to this vital global agricultural revolution, many of Aotearoa’s 35,000 dairy, sheep and beef farmers have yet to understand, let alone embrace, the utterly pivotal role they have to play if we are to respond responsibly and adequately to the climate crisis.
The longer they delay, the greater the liability and the bigger the lost opportunity they will impose on themselves and the rest of the country.
By accepting the pleas of farming ‘leaders’ to preserve their crumbling status quo, the Commission has failed them and the nation.
