THERE is concern in the cattle industry, that the warming effect of methane being produced by Australian cattle is not being calculated correctly.

The recently formed Cattle Australia has stepped in to address this problem.

Currently, MLA promotes CN30 which relies on the GWP100 metric. CN30 stands for Carbon Neutral in 2030.

The GWP100 metric calculates that the stable methane emissions from Australian cattle, are seriously changing the climate when they are not. The CN30 commitment means that cattle producers have to reduce methane emissions to zero by 2030, or offset them by carbon storage in paddocks, or purchasing carbon credits.

Cattle Australia has Climate Neutral (climate stabilisation) as its policy. Cattle Australia prefers the GWP* metric, because it is more accurate at measuring the warming effect of short-term greenhouse gases like methane. The Cattle Australia position is consistent with the 2015 Paris Agreement that aims to achieve a climate neutral world by mid-century.

The recently developed GWP* metric says that methane emissions from Australian cattle have to drop 0.3pc each year, to be Climate Neutral i.e., having no impact on climate change. This is a very small figure and not hard to achieve.

The GWP100 metric calibrates all greenhouse gases as CO₂ equivalents. It pretends methane is a kind of CO_2, and it isn’t.

A detailed explanation of the above issues can be found in the article https://www.beefcentral.com/news/opinion/opinion-cn30-was-a-poor-decision-and-should-be-replaced-with-climate-neutral/   This article also has a simple explanation of how methane behaves in the atmosphere.

The first cattle in Australia did change the climate, but the current ones are not

Readers have to understand the past to understand the present, and why the current stable methane emissions from Australian cattle are not changing the climate.

When the first cattle were put in the paddock in the past, this immediately started changing the climate, because the level of methane in the atmosphere started increasing (radiative forcing increased).

For the first 12 years, the amount of methane in the atmosphere kept increasing, then it reached equilibrium.

Methane lasts 12 years in the atmosphere, before being broken down into CO₂ and H₂O. It is broken down by a chemical reaction with hydroxyl radicals (OH) that keep forming in the atmosphere.

It is true that Australian cows are constantly releasing methane into the atmosphere, however, while a cow is releasing methane today, the methane emissions 12 years ago will be breaking down in the atmosphere at the same rate. Providing extra cows are not put in the paddock, the methane residing in the atmosphere will stay in equilibrium, with the additions and subtractions.

To get the methane released by current Australian cattle into perspective, it is important to understand that all the cows that followed the initial population of cows, have just maintained the initial increase of methane in the atmosphere, that the first cows caused. Put another way, they have just maintained the equilibrium level set by the first cows after they had been in the paddock for 12 years.

Naturally, the current herd size didn’t exist on day-one. The term “first cows” doesn’t refer to just the very first cows, it also refers to the extra cows that kept being added to the herd over time, until it plateaued at a stable size. The point being made is that the Australian cattle industry progressively changed the climate as new cows were added to the herd, but it happened in the past.

It is very important to understand the difference between stable methane emissions and a stable climate (stable radiative forcing).

Provided the emissions have been stable for a few decades, stable methane emissions do not change the net balance of greenhouse gases (i.e. don’t change radiative forcing).

When it comes to not changing the climate, the stability period has to be some decades more because, with all greenhouse gases, CO₂ included, there is “committed warming”, which means some of the effect of past emissions is still to come because of the thermal inertia of the earth’s oceans.

Australian cattle numbers are reasonably stable and have not increased since the mid 1970s, so are not contributing to climate change because the required period for methane stability and committed warming is covered.

The amount of methane residing in the atmosphere from Australian cattle is not changing from one year to the next.

For some reason, the GWP100 camp think it is logical to blame today’s cattle for what the first cattle did to the climate in the past. It is a bit like blaming the current generation for the climate change caused by their forbears when they drove around in their model T Fords.

Likewise, the day they turned the power station on, also changed the climate. But nobody is holding power stations responsible for past emissions.

The message here is that what happened in the past caused the problem, but the focus is now on the future and the need to stabilise the climate.

Did MLA have the mandate to instigate the process of committing the red meat industry to CN30 in 2017?

I ask the question, because the ramification of that decision announced at the MLA annual general meeting in 2017, is coming home to roost for cattle producers. The CN30 goal relies on the GWP100 metric that treats methane as a CO2 equivalent, when it is not. Time is quickly running out to modernise the goal so that it aligns with warming effect.

Fortunately, Cattle Australia has been progressive and investigated the science underpinning CN30 and found it wanting. Cattle Australia’s policy is to have a goal of Climate Neutral (climate stabilisation) which is consistent with the goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The concept of Carbon Neutral that MLA supports is illogical. Nitrous oxide (N₂O) is a greenhouse gas, but it doesn’t have any carbon in it.

When it comes to the methane produced by Australian cattle, this methane release is very close to a Climate Neutral outcome. MLA’s CN30 position, dictates that the Australian cattle industry has to reduce methane to zero by 2030. This is morally wrong.

It is estimated that the CN30 commitment could cost the cattle industry untold billions of dollars. It is disrespectful for current MLA to try and hinder cattle producers trying to rectify the position they now find themselves in.

Personally, I can’t understand why a R&D corporation would think it should be setting policy for the red meat industry, instead of producers.

RMAC is an anomaly in the decision making process

RMAC is a collection of peak industry bodies. In my opinion, it is common knowledge that a number of the peak industry bodies are simply not on top of the science around CN30, so are sitting on the fence and not willing to dispute CN30. This lack of understanding is because CN30 has not been questioned until recently, hence people are on a steep learning curve with a complicated subject.

RMAC is a democratic framework, however, grassfed cattle producers will wear about 80-90 percent of the ramifications, when it comes to emissions. One solution is that other peak bodies, who are sitting on the fence and running with the status quo, relinquish their vote in this instance. Or, MLA and RMAC decide to respect this fact.

Cattle methane is much easier to remove from the atmosphere than CO₂

The risk that methane poses long-term, is much lower than the risk CO₂ poses. This reality is being overlooked in the climate change debate and especially the policy area.

When we hit the tipping-point of 1.5 degrees of warming and something has to be done urgently, CO₂ will be the really hard one to get out of the atmosphere. With methane, removing the cattle is all that has to be done, and the methane will simply dissolve after 12 years, as part of the chemical reaction with OH radicals.

When it comes to CO₂, you actually have to do something concrete and expensive to remove the CO₂ from the atmosphere. Trees could be planted, or CO₂ could be stored underground. And here is the catch: more CO₂ has to be removed from the atmosphere than you would expect. The problem is that the oceans will keep releasing CO₂ into the atmosphere and replace a lot of the CO₂ that is removed.

Natural systems will always keep equalising things. When you release CO₂ into the atmosphere, the oceans work in your favour, because they keep pulling some of it out of the atmosphere and absorbing it. However, when you are trying to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere, the oceans work against you. Put simply, storing a ton of carbon in a tree is not going to remove a ton of carbon out of the atmosphere, because of what the oceans release into the atmosphere.

Australian cattle methane is not impacting the remaining radiative forcing budget

To understand what drives warming (climate change), we first have to understand what radiative forcing is. Unfortunately, it is a term most people don’t understand and stop listening when it is used. This is because they think it is just scientific jargon, which it isn’t. Radiative forcing is a measurement, just like litres and metres are measurements.

Radiative forcing describes the balance of incoming and outgoing radiation. Greenhouse gases, like methane, directly affect global temperatures by intercepting outgoing longwave radiation and re-radiating it. This keeps the Earth warmer than it would otherwise be. Greenhouse gases change the energy balance. The radiative forcing of each greenhouse gas is known.

To stabilise the climate, its necessary to stop adding to radiative forcing.

The GWP100 metric assesses the radiative forcing over an arbitrary 100 years. But what is lost, is any information about when the radiative forcing is occurring.

If radiative forcing is going to be stabilised, emissions of long-term gases like CO₂ have to be reduced to zero. Methane emissions are short-lived, and their radiative forcing comes and goes relatively quickly.

This is why, for short lived greenhouse gases like methane, it makes more sense to manage the rate of emission and keep the emission rate stable to stop radiative forcing increasing. A more-or-less stable rate of methane emission is consistent with climate stabilisation.

The GWP* metric takes a similar position, and states that stable methane emissions have to be reduced by about 0.3pc each year to be Climate Neutral.

When we talk about limiting warming to 1.5 degrees, this means we have a budget of radiative forcing left, before we hit 1.5 degrees of warming. Put another way, we can only let radiative forcing increase up to a certain level.

Ongoing stable methane emissions from Australian cattle are not changing the level of radiative forcing in the atmosphere, so are not using up any of the remaining budget available before we hit 1.5 degrees of warming. However, one molecule of CO2 released uses up some of the radiative forcing budget.

One of the reasons there is so much focus on reducing methane emissions in policy discussions, is because reductions in methane is an easy option to keep temperature rise below 1.5 degrees.

However, using methane reductions as an alternative to CO₂ reductions is a quick fix with long term detrimental consequences. In 2000 Jim Hansen suggested that reducing methane (CH₄) quickly is a useful thing to do IF (and by implication ONLY IF) you stop the growth in CO₂ emissions.

Australian cattle producers are being told they have to seriously reduce methane emissions, remembering that these stable emissions are not driving climate change. A case of doing the heavy lifting to make it easier for others.

This report from IPCC really highlights that CO₂ is where the attention has to be, and to a much lesser extent, methane:

“IPCC AR6 WG1: SPM . The Summary for Policymakers in the WG I report for AR6 of the IPCC [5] doesn’t express itself in terms of emission equivalence. Rather, climate futures are discussed in terms of scenarios that specify emission pathways for each gas. For each of the scenarios, the proportion of warming attributed to CO2 is 2 or 3 times as much as is attributed to other greenhouse gases combined. For the SSP1.9 scenario (the least) the scenario specifies that methane emissions are reduced by 50% over this century, while CO2 emissions are reduced to zero and then become negative (i.e. net uptake) towards the end of the century.”

Anything the IPCC writes is tough reading. “The least” they refer to, just means that that scenario had the lowest radiative forcing of those that the IPCC considered.

This report says methane has to be reduced by 50pc OVER THIS CENTURY. However, CO2 emissions have to be REDUCED TO ZERO AND THEN BECOME NEGATIVE (i.e. net uptake) towards the end of the century.

This totally contradicts the CN30 commitment to reduce methane emissions to zero by 2030.

In a recent presentation to Farmers for Climate Action, producers were urged to stop discussing metrics and get on with the job of addressing climate change.

Well, metrics do need to be discussed, to ensure the right one is used. The outcome of using a metric that incorrectly measures temperature change, is that it shifts emphasis and results in policy decisions that will move the world towards 1.5 degrees of warming faster.

To highlight why we should be talking about metrics, GWP100 says that a reduction in ongoing stable methane emissions from cattle will still result in temperature rise, when this action produces global cooling.

When it comes to methane produced by cattle, Australia is taking responsibility for warming it is not causing. City people need to know this, as this aspect of climate policy is not in their best interest.

With Australian cattle, any reduction in methane that can be achieved, will result in global cooling. This is why reducing methane emissions gives Australian producers a good story to tell.

There is little time left to influence policy that is currently being developed

Time really is running out to open the debate in the broader community and set the record straight on cattle methane.

It came out recently that Westpac is going to have a lending policy based on tree clearing.

Well, banks are also starting to set policy on emissions of their clients and are starting to ask producers questions about their emissions.

It is not just Government that needs to be influenced before it is too late.

 

* Farmer and author Alan Lauder ran sheep and cattle in South West Queensland for more than 30 years. His deep level of interest in how livestock and plants interact with the carbon cycle led to the publication of the ‘Carbon Grazing’ principle in 2008 and a 2012 paper with several climate scientists which pre-figured  the GWP* climate metric developed by Oxford University’s Dr Myles Allen and his team in 2018.