Belching livestock will have to go

New Zealand would need to reduce livestock methane emissions by up to 22 per cent by 2050 to stop any additional global warming, official research shows.

This would likely require a serious reduction in the number of livestock farmed, unless new and untried technologies can be shown to work. Livestock contribute the vast majority of our methane emissions, mostly through belching.

The release from the parliamentary commissioner for the environment throws a wrench into an emerging consensus across the country that ‘‘stabilising’’ New Zealand’s short-lived methane emissions at current levels could be a viable option to stop warming.

It suggests that actual ‘‘stabilisation’’ would still require a reduction in livestock or the success of new methods to lower emissions, such as special feeds, vaccines or tweaking livestock breeding.

Climate Change Minister James Shaw is currently consulting on plans for a Zero Carbon Act, which would set some kind of reduction target in law.

Parliamentary commissioner and former National Party environment minister Simon Upton is working on a wider report concerning the Zero Carbon Act but decided to put out this research from Andy Reisinger early in order to inform debate.

Federated Farmers vice-president Andrew Hoggard said the key point of the report was reductions of 10 to 22 per cent were needed by 2050, whereas earlier reports had said they just needed to be stabilised.

There are three goals for 2050 on the table – and none of them consider ‘‘no more warming’’ to be the actual goal.