FARM (Facts About Ruminant Methane), the organization I teamed up with to continue the fight against those who want to tax farmers for methane emissions, has a stand at Mystery Creek.
We are in Rural Living Marquee site RM118
Please come along and say hi.
Also if you have not joined FARM yet, please do so at www.farmemssions.co.nz
FARM has been running a series of ads in the Rural News and Farmers Weekly and thanks to those who have donated for them. It is important to keep the message out there.
I could not bear to watch the climate change special on Q & A, a couple of weeks ago, but what I did see in highlights on social media was very upsetting. When Dairy NZ won’t even stand up for farmers and the undisputable science of ruminant methane emissions what chance is there? Having Dairy NZ’s Tim Mackle speak for farmers on this issue is not much better than Russel Norman doing it.
The big hurdle we face is the narrative that livestock emissions make up 48% of our emissions. This is brought up time after time. Of course the science shows us the flaws in the CO2 equivalent system and the nonsense of GWP 100, but despite this we have not been able to shake the narrative that paints livestock farming as a big contributor to global warming because it is 48% of our emissions.
Just once I would like to hear Federated Farmers, Dairy NZ or Beef and Lamb defend farmers and explain that the 48% of emissions from livestock are nowhere near as harmful as the 52 % that are sourced from fossil fuel. Agriculture might well produce 48% of these carbon emissions but each carbon emission from livestock causes only 10 to 20% of the warming a carbon emission from fossil sources.
The Climate Commission final report is out today. We will comment on it on the FARM website once we have had time to analyse it. I expect little change from the draft report. The saddest thing is that the report acknowledges everything we have argued but farmers will not reap the benefits because farming leaders are so impotent.
The Commission acknowledges that our stable ruminant methane emissions are not contributing to further warming. They state clearly that carbon emissions sourced from methane do not have the same warming impact as carbon emissions from fossil fuel and the only reason they give for needing to reduce methane emissions is because CO2 emissions can not be reduced quickly enough. In other words they are calling for farmers to reduce methane emission so that CO2 emitters can carry on emitting. They want farmers to subsidize CO2 emitters and be taxed if they don’t. And Dairy NZ, Beef and lamb and Federated Farmers are helping by building the scheme they are going to use to tax you with. He waka eka noa
With those three in the opposition corner farmers are in trouble. What these three should be doing is arguing for a pricing system that pays farmers to reduce emissions, not one that taxes then if they don’t, because as the Climate Commission clearly states we only need to reduce methane emissions so we can continue to emit CO2. Paying farmers to do that seems reasonable, so why do Dairy NZ, Beef and Lamb and Federated Farmers not fight for that? Why will they not acknowledge the science that even the Climate Commission acknowledges?
Anyway, be great to discuss these questions and more and have a chat with you about this at the Fieldays and I am looking forward to meeting as many of our supporters as I can. Please come along to the stand and say hi. Rural Living Marquee site RM118
If I am not on site, I won’t be far away but Owen Jennings and the rest of the team will be there and they would love to talk to you.