Bankrupt or Kick-start!

Bankrupt or Kick-start!

The simple choice the Government has to make.

This choice is related to our current climate change commitments. We are currently committed under the Paris Agreement, from the Labour Governments updated agreement from 2021 (the Labour Government committed to a Nationally Determined Contribution [NDC] to reduce emissions by a 41% reduction from 2005 levels by 2030, and a net-zero target by 2050).

The current Coalition Government has just recently committed to New Zealand's second international climate target under the Paris Agreement, (Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced that New Zealand will reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035).

If New Zealand doesn’t meet its emissions reduction commitments under the Paris Agreement, it could cost the country between $3 billion and $23 billion, primarily through buying carbon credits from other countries to offset those emission targets if we fail to meet them (which is considered to be quite likely).

Where does the money go?

The money from climate change commitment costs, goes to the United Nations  to support projects that reduce emissions, adapt to climate change impacts, and help developing countries achieve low-emission, climate-resilient pathways.

We have no idea how much of our contribution will actually go towards actions to combat climate change or in actual fact disappear in overhead costs to fund the bureaucrats who are managing the process.

I firmly suspect that nearly all of the money goes to subsidize the bureaucrats rather than actually making a difference.

Considering that possibility we need to go back to the original question above; Do we bankrupt New Zealand or do we spend the equivalent amount on climate change actions here in New Zealand and kick-start our own economy whilst also actually making a difference on the environment.  

Our emissions on a global scale are just 0.017% of the total and New Zealand has the lowest carbon footprint of any food producer in the world, with our agricultural industries producing and exporting food to feed 40 million people around the world.

Carbon dioxide exists in the Earth's atmosphere at a concentration of approximately 0.04 percent (400 parts per million) by volume.

Our farming methods are unique in that we use more greenhouse gas than we emit and of all of the CO₂ emitted into the atmosphere, only from 3.6% to 5% is produced by humans.

That is actually 3.6% to 5% of that 0.04 per cent total in the atmosphere.

If we take the top estimate of 5% that means that human emissions add up to 0.002% of the atmosphere.

In light of the fact that Article 2 (b) of the Paris Agreement that NZ signed said clearly; no government should take steps that “threaten food production”.

NZ’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture as part of its overall effort to reduce New Zealand’s emissions, threatens our ability to continue producing the current levels of food production and therefore food production globally (given that we produce enough food for 40 million people worldwide).

The argument from the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) has always been that the methane produced by livestock digestion is more ‘dangerous’ than carbon dioxide by a factor of twenty-eight - even though methane is part of a natural biogenic cycle that can be traced back to the dinosaurs.

However, it now turns out those climate change ‘experts’ were wrong, and that the actual figure is only seven, not twenty-eight.

The IPCC admitted the mistake in their Sixth Assessment Report, explaining at page 1016 of Chapter 7, “…expressing methane emissions as CO2 equivalent of 28, overstates the effect on global surface temperature by a factor of 3-4”.

Thus, it is highly likely that the total emissions calculated for New Zealand globally are overstated on a global warming basis. The oft quoted figure of 50% of emissions coming from agriculture is only correct if the wrong figures are used (methane emissions calculated as CO2 equivalent of 28).

This mistake by the IPCC has never been acknowledged or corrected by New Zealand officials and in fact those false assumptions from the IPCC have continued to underpin the Net Zero policy agenda.

Professor Dave Frame who advises the government and farming industries, and has been an IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) participant, admits that New Zealand’s total emissions from all sheep, beef, dairy and deer ruminant methane over the last 100 years have caused some nonsensical fraction like one, one-thousandth of a degree centigrade change; In other words, an immeasurable, utterly insignificant amount per year.

Why would New Zealand, a tiny country that is already one of the cleanest and greenest in the world need to do much more? We already produce 80 percent of our electricity from renewable energy sources.

We have the most efficient farmers in the world. The country is awash with trees. And we are so ‘green’ that urban development and roading covers less than one percent of our land area.

And the answer is that we wouldn’t need to do much more - if the Coalition Government corrected two fundamental errors in their climate modelling that are making New Zealand’s situation appear worse than it really is.

The first is their continued use of the IPCC’s ‘worst case’ emissions scenario called Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 which predicts such extreme sea level rise and flooding that it’s been discredited for policy-making.

The second major flaw in the Government’s policy framework is their claim that methane is twenty-eight times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The UN has accepted that 28 overstates the effect of methane on global surface temperature and has corrected it to a factor of seven. Yet our Government continues to use 28 in their projections. But if the correct value of seven was used, instead of 28, our total emissions would fall to a level close to our 2050 target.

The magnitude of these climate errors is significant – and the consequences are so horrendously expensive and far reaching, that they will impact on the lives of all New Zealanders.

I am not saying that we shouldn’t and can’t do more, but given that New Zealand has the lowest carbon footprint of any food producer in the world and one of the lowest impacts environmentally we shouldn’t be trying to take actions that will bankrupt us.

Spend the money from climate change commitments here in New Zealand and get the benefit of that spending both on the environment and on the kick-start to our own economy. It has to be a “win – win” situation for New Zealand and the environment!