Opportunities, Challenges for NZ in Global Climate Efforts

AARES MEDIA RELEASE
Opportunities And Challenges for NZ in Global Efforts to Limit Climate Change
Tuesday 10 February, 2015

There are challenges as well as opportunities for agriculture in limiting global warming to two degrees, says a leading NZ agricultural greenhouse gas researcher.

Dr Andy Reisinger is deputy director of the New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre, and one of the lead authors of the 5th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He will be speaking at this week's Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society's (AARES) conference in Rotorua on Friday 13 February as part of a panel discussion on climate change policies.

He says the recent assessment by the IPCC concluded that emissions of carbon dioxide need to be reduced to zero by or before 2100 if we want to limit global warming to no more than two degrees.

"This goal is accepted by most governments around the world. It is an enormous challenge.

"Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture globally can make an important contribution to the goal of limiting warming to two degrees and would lower the global costs of achieving this goal."

But there are difficulties for a country like New Zealand, where almost half of total greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture. "Raising awareness of the global potential for livestock research to reduce emissions is challenging because for many other countries, livestock contribute only a small percentage of total greenhouse gas emissions. New Zealand's domestic research programme, together with its support for the Global Research Alliance for Agricultural Greenhouse Gases, is trying to increase global engagement through research collaboration as well as position New Zealand to lead global efforts in this area," he says.

"Key options at the global scale for reducing agricultural emissions are increasing productivity and efficiency of food production, developing new technologies to reduce emissions without compromising food production; and managing demand by reducing food waste and influencing dietary choices away from emissions-intensive food products."

Dr Reisinger says that emissions per unit of livestock product have declined consistently over the past 20 years in New Zealand, demonstrating that improvements in productivity and efficiency can make a real difference. But options are limited for New Zealand to reduce absolute emissions from agriculture within current overall agricultural growth targets - hence new technologies are needed.

"Absolute emissions from agriculture in New Zealand have increased due to increased overall production, mainly from expansion of dairy farms, in response to global demand. Most of New Zealand's livestock products are exported. Soil carbon stores are generally very high in New Zealand, which limits the scope for offsetting emissions by increasing soil carbon," he says.

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