Cows, coal and carbon
I was once told by someone much smarter than me that the Green Party policy of today will be Labour Party policy in 10 years’ time. Even without that level of insight, nobody who has been paying attention to the political discourse for the past decade will be very surprised at the Climate Change Commission’s recent report, though there do seem to be large numbers of people shaking their heads in dazed bewilderment.
The Commission’s report largely reflects the findings and recommendations of the Royal Society’s 2016 one, Transition to a Low-Carbon Economy for New Zealand. That report was essentially ignored by the government of the day, but it is extremely unlikely the current government will treat the latest version in the same manner.
The report calls for, among other things, an immediate end to the construction of coal fired boilers, an end to the burning of coal for process heat by 2037 and noted an 8-10 percent reduction in dairy, beef and sheep stock numbers expected as a result of current policies by 2030.
No matter how climate hesitant you might be or how little New Zealand has contributed to global warming since pre-industrial times, the Commission estimates that figure to be 0.0028 degrees C, the fact remains our share of global warming is four times greater than our share of the total population and 1.5 times greater than our share of landmass.
While Fonterra have already committed to not installing any new coal boilers or increasing their capacity to burn coal, suppliers have every right to be disappointed that action was not taken far sooner and far quicker.
Coal is the low hanging fruit of climate change and we’ve known for decades that we needed to reduce emissions. We didn’t and now farmers are bearing some of that cost through animal reduction targets.
Getting out of coal is possible though expensive and difficult. Tolerance for offsetting emissions has worn thin so tactics like buying a forest in order to keep burning coal are off the table. Likewise ignoring the government in the mistaken belief they have no teeth to enforce the phasing out of coal; the simple act of raising the cost of carbon to the point where using coal is uneconomic would soon force change.
Lobbying to exclude energy from the recommendations would have consequences for other areas; the whole report is a finely balanced tension between farming, transport and energy. If savings aren’t made in one sector they have to be picked up by another, and I’m certain farmers already feel like they’re picking up enough of the tab.
Complicating the transition from coal is the fact many of Fonterra’s North Island plants are primarily fuelled by natural gas, a resource that is predicted to run out at the same time as coal usage is slated to stop. This puts even more pressure on the Cooperative both in terms of capital expenditure and closing plants to refit the boilers; nearly every single boiler will have to be changed.
As with coal the Climate Change Commission’s targets for stock reduction seem ambitious at first, 15 percent fewer dairy cows by 2030, but that only equates to a reduction of 1.7 percent per annum. This is easily achieved by slightly lowering the replacement rate of animals lost through natural attrition.
The Commission predicts these lower animal numbers will have no impact on milk production, and this is borne out by Livestock Improvement Corporation data showing production increases via genetic gain sit at 1.8 percent per year, almost exactly matching the annual drop in cow population. The opportunity is there through careful breeding to allow cows to express their genetic merit by gradually dropping the stocking rate while production remains constant.
Of course, if the lower stocking rates are offset by higher use of bought in feed any emission reductions will be cancelled out.
The report also mentions land use change, a phenomenon that is already happening in areas like Tasman where many dairy farms are being planted in hops, and in Golden Bay with a number of dairy farms closing down due to frustration with compliance obligations or a desire for a less stressful lifestyle.
There’s no one single solution
that will allow us to meet the ambitious GHG targets that are laid out in the report and keep farming the way we are. Based on the science that the NZ Greenhouse Gas Research Centre
are aware of, a combination of all the science and changes to land management are likely to get us there, but we must have faith in the scientific solutions and keep funding them to succeed.