He Waka Eke Noa (HWEN ) is a proposed pricing scheme for livestock emissions.
This is a four-part series explaining the big four mistakes it makes and what it needs to do to fix these.
Part 1 HWEN misunderstands the science of methane in particular what net zero methane means See previous post https://farmcarbon.co.nz/what-he-waka-eke-noa-has-got-wrong-part-1/
Part 2 HWEN works on the premise that farmers have to pay for methane emissions without examining alternatives
Part 3 HWEN does not allow for the IPCC scenario the Government adopted to set its emission reduction targets which does not require nitrous oxide to reduce in the manner HWEN does
Part 4 HWEN promotes its pricing scheme as better for farmers than the ETS and that either the ETS or HWEN are needed to satisfy overseas markets. HWEN’s conclusions are questionable and we examine these.
Part 2 Part 2 HWEN works on the premise that farmers have to pay for methane emissions without examining alternatives
The point of the scheme was to develop a pricing mechanism to reduce livestock emissions.
The premise that pricing emissions will achieve reductions in emissions is questionable when you consider that transport emissions which are priced have increased by over 100% since 1990 and methane emissions which are not priced have increased just a few percent.
Also HWEN and the Government are working on the premise that pricing emissions means they need to be paid for by farmers rather than looking at the option of using that pricing mechanism to pay farmers to reduce emissions of methane.
Farmers should be paid to reduce emissions for the following reasons;
The reason the Climate Commission gives for the methane reduction targets it recommends is not to reduce further warming from methane because it acknowledges in its report that there is none. Rather its justification is that the methane reductions are needed to offset CO2 emissions which it states can not be reduced quickly enough.
The Commission wants to allow CO2 emissions to continue to increase temperatures until 2050 and then maintain that level of warming from CO2 past 2050, and to allow that it wants to use methane reductions to offset the warming from CO2 emissions. They want farmers to subsidise CO2 emitters in other words and they recommend penalising farmers financially if they do not. This is not only pretty unjust but also scientifically tenuous. Some scientists see justification in reducing methane, others not, but the consensus is that reducing methane will make no difference to peak temperatures. So if you are not concerned about peak temperature then reducing methane may have merit but climate justice requires farmers to be paid to reduce emissions, not pay for the honour of subsidising CO2 emitters!
He Waka Eke Noa translates to “It’s a Free Ride”!!!! So it is very aptly named.
Farmers are quite rightly concerned about the methane reduction targets, but what needs to be remembered is that these targets have not been set because methane needs to reduce by between 24 and 47% to stop them having an impact on global temperatures, but rather to offset CO2 emissions.
In that context farmers should be saying to the Government “if you want us to reduce emissions this much give us the tools to do it and pay us for our losses. If our emission reductions allow CO2 emitters to keep emitting, we should be paid in the same way foresters are paid to allow CO2 emitters to keep emitting by planting trees”.
Under NZ climate policy foresters are paid to offset CO2 emissions by planting trees and there is no reason why farmers should not be paid to offset CO2 emissions by reducing methane. Both allow CO2 emitters to keep emitting in the same way. In fact, converting farmland to forestry also causes warming by releasing soil carbon and changing albedo (heat absorption from dark surfaces such as forests versus heat reflection from light surfaces such as pasture) and these are not fully considered in the ETS making many forestry credits environmentally and financially fraudulent. Methane reduction credits would have more integrity.
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. 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.
The big problem is that farmers are being pressured to reduce emissions by everyone but no one has any idea how to do that. Simply reducing production will increase emissions because that production will simply move off shore where it will have a higher emissions footprint, but if that is what the Government wants farmers should not be afraid to capitalise on that by demanding that they are paid to achieve this. If the Government is hell bent on wrecking the economy then there is not much farmers can do about it other than make sure they are not affected. If the Government believes reducing NZ livestock emissions is needed, even if it means global emissions go up, and that our economy will be wrecked, then farmers should be positioning themselves to profit from Government policy. Carbon traders and foresters are exploiting climate policies after all. Farmers have the potential to do that too.
The sad thing is that If HWEN was focused on identifying the true net warming or cooling impact of individual farms, once all factors are considered, farmers would be all too happy to be part of a scheme that recognised the contribution to global cooling reducing methane causes and have their contribution to allowing CO2 emitters to continue to emit recognised with a financial reward in the same way foresters are rewarded for doing the same thing. Equally they would support any scheme that identified any net warming impact of a farm and incentivised reductions. Such a scheme may actually achieve something.
Farmers have put themselves on the backfoot by going along with whatever the Government requires HWEN to do. HWEN was an opportunity to get the treatment of methane emissions right for once and it has not done that. It could have gone along with the Government in developing pricing mechanism options that require farmers to pay and alongside developed options that will pay farmers and modelled the expected results to show which will achieve a better outcome for the environment and farmers and the Government. Then the Government would have had no option but to pick the one option that will work best, and that is the option to pay farmers to offset CO2 emissions by reducing methane emissions