A scheme proposed to be an alternative to putting agricultural biological emissions in to the ETS named He Waka Eke Noa (HWEN) has been presented to the Government. The scheme developed by some farming groups and a Māori organization is an attempt to head off the growing pressure for these biological emissions from livestock to be included in the ETS.

This pressure arises because farmers are constantly blamed for producing nearly half our carbon emissions, mainly from the methane ruminant livestock produce as a by product of the digestive process.

What Is not said about these emissions however is that the carbon emissions produced by livestock are very different to the carbon emissions produced by burning fossil fuel.

Carbon emissions from livestock do not cause the warming fossil sourced carbon emissions do.

Carbon emissions from burning fossil fuel takes carbon from under the ground where it has been trapped for millions of years and releases it into the atmosphere. This adds to the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gas and potentially increases the greenhouse effect and causes temperatures to increase

Carbon emissions from livestock belching methane are sourced from the atmosphere, not under the ground, and are cyclical and add nothing to the atmosphere when emissions are stable, as they are now in New Zealand. The Climate Change Commission proved ruminant methane emissions have reduced steadily since 2005.

The goal of climate policy is to get emissions of greenhouse gases to net zero. Net zero is achieved when the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gas is stable. The Climate Commission and the Ministry for the Environment both state that for a stable atmosphere to be achieved carbon emissions from burning fossil fuel must be eliminated or offset fully by planting trees, for example, but carbon emissions from methane from livestock need only remain stable, as they are now, and they do not need to reduce.

The Ministry for the Environment goes as far as saying that these stable livestock methane emissions are not causing any increase in global temperatures.

Farmers are quite rightly fired up that they are being required to pay for emissions which the Government itself acknowledges are not causing any increase in global temperatures.

The Government and the Climate Commission both want livestock emissions of methane to reduce below the net zero level they are now, however. The reason they want these methane emissions to reduce is because reductions in methane will have a cooling impact and this will offset the warming impact of CO2 emissions. It is a form of offset, similar to planting trees.

Foresters are paid by CO2 emitters to plant trees to offset their CO2 emissions and fairness would dictate that because reducing methane emissions offsets CO2 emissions in the same way, then farmers should be paid too.

As well as its inherent unfairness HWEN is a poor scheme because it punishes farmers whether they are reducing emissions or not and for that reason it will be counterproductive.

A scheme which pays farmers to reduce methane emissions will be far more successful at reducing emissions than one which charges them for emissions whether they reduce them or not. There is no incentive for farmers to reduce emissions. A penalty that is based on a unit of production that earns the farmer more than the cost of the penalty will not incentivise a reduction in output and thus emissions. In fact, if it incentivises anything at all it will be to increase emissions by increasing production to pay the methane tax.

The designers of HWEN have been too focused on trying to appease an ideologically focused Government that is hell bent on taxing farmers, rather than on creating a scheme that reflects the science and on doing what is right and fair and what is best for the environment.

© Scoop Media