AN independent report put together to help the Government meet its climate targets has stated that agriculture could account for 47pc of the country’s emissions by 2050 – while ignoring calls from the industry to address issues with methane reporting.
The report also spoke about the potential for reducing red meat consumption to limit the impact on global warming.
The Climate Change Authority was commissioned by the Federal Government to investigate “decarbonisation pathways” for six sectors including agriculture and land, built environment, electricity and energy, industry and waste and transport and resources.
While talking up the potential of feed supplements, manure management and improving herd efficiencies, the report warned that agriculture could account for a significant share of the country’s emissions in the coming decades.
It is unclear what assumptions were made to come up with the 47pc figure, however, the report was complimentary of the energy sector saying it will make the greatest reductions between 2025-2050. The report said energy was to be followed, in decreasing order, by industry, new land-based sequestration, transport, direct air capture, agriculture, and then buildings
“Good progress is being made on decarbonising the energy sector and rolling out firmed renewables,” Climate Change Authority chair Matt Kean said.
“But to achieve a rapid and orderly transition to net zero, all sectors of the economy, along with all levels of government, must plan and act together.”
Cattle Australia deputy chair Adam Coffey said the organisation rejected the idea that agriculture was “hard to abate” as stated in the report.
“Cattle Australia challenges the notion that agriculture will find it hard to reach net zero, if regulators accept appropriate accounting for the red meat sector the outcomes could be entirely different,” Mr Coffey said.
“The ongoing racquet against the red meat industry across the world has the stop.”
Methane metrics not addressed in report
While the report was keen to talk about a future where agriculture was likely to take up a greater share of the country’s emissions account, it did not address issues with methane accounting.
Cattle Australia has been questioning the approach to climate targets that conflate livestock methane emissions with carbon dioxide from fossil fuels – a point the report has not really addressed.
“Modern climate science presents good evidence to suggest a need for change and our politicians are not listening,” he said.
“Enteric methane emissions are not the same as fossil fuel emissions, so let’s stop treating them like it. There are serious ramifications for this approach, not just for our sector but society as a whole.
“We need to get this right.”
The internationally recognised GWP 100 metric has also been recognised by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to overstate the warming impact of stable methane emissions by 300-400pc – it represents methane as a CO2 equivalent.
A point made in submissions from Cattle Australia and the National Farmers’ Federation with both calling for use of metrics that are specifically designed for methane and that focus on warming rather than numbers.
Both Cattle Australia and the NFF called on the authority to look at other metrics that are specifically designed for methane as a way of representing the industry’s real impact on global warming.
With a quick flick through the report this afternoon, it appears those calls have fallen on deaf ears.
NFF raise concerns about plant-based recommendation
While the NFF recognised the report as a balanced and detailed document, it did raise concern about a suggestion that reduction in red meat consumption could help reach net zero.
“The NFF strongly opposes this notion, maintaining that a balanced and nutritious diet includes red meat,” president David Jochinke said.
“The idea that alternative animal proteins could replace red meat in Australia’s unique rangelands is severely misguided.”
The report said that shifts in consumption away from red meat could represent another pathway to reducing emissions. The suggestion was light on detail but failed to mention that plant-based diets have their own environmental impact,
“They include food products made from plants (for example, grains, legumes and nuts), fungus (mushrooms), algae, insects, cell-cultured meat or protein from precision fermentation using yeast and other micro-organisms,”
It also spoke about the lab grown meat as an emerging technology, which demands a lot of electricity and could become viable with renewable energy. It also failed the mention the regulatory pressure on lab grown meat across the world and the scepticism from experts in the field.
Wary of soil carbon
The report does recognise agriculture a carbon sink, with a heavy reliance on “reforestation” and reducing “deforestation”. It was a bit more sceptical of building soil carbon.
“While increasing soil carbon is an opportunity to achieve carbon and non-carbon benefits, the scale and permanence of its potential impact as a climate solution is less certain than many other land-based carbon removal opportunities,” it said.