Leaving agriculture out of global climate deal justified, NZ climate scientist says

Global efforts to combat climate change should focus first on eradicating carbon dioxide emissions, while less action on agricultural greenhouse gases is justified in the short term, a New Zealand climate change scientist says.

Addressing the Climate Change and Business conference in Auckland, Victoria University's climate change professor Dave Frame said: "The focus on CO2 means CO2 is the focus. Agriculture is something you can do something about later.

"You don't have to stop methane," he said, referring to one of the main agricultural greenhouse gases (GHGs) produced by animals, whereas stopping CO2 emissions was important. "You can have a major impact on methane in the longer term."

The inclusion of the agricultural sector in New Zealand's emissions trading scheme has been a continuous source of political controversy, with the government leaving agricultural emissions out of the ETS until hoped-for scientific innovations find new ways to control methane emissions.

Frame acknowledged his view was not shared by many American and European scientists. The New Zealand Green Party softened its approach to including agricultural emissions in the ETS, which is up for review over the next year.

Climate Change Negotiations Minister Tim Groser told the conference that terms of reference for the ETS review were likely to go to Cabinet for approval before the end of this year, but consultations and decisions would occur next year.

He gave no hint as to what changes might be considered, although policy observers expect concessions to heavy industry emitters are ripe for unwinding, given the very low carbon prices the New Zealand scheme has produced.

Commenting on progress towards the next global climate change summit, in Paris in December, Groser said preparations were far more advanced than the disastrous 2009 summit in Copenhagen, the last such meeting where a global climate change deal was anticipated.

"Momentum is really developing," said Groser. "The European Union took most of the carbon lead politically" before Copenhagen. "Since then, the US and China have caught up."

The deal he hoped would be done in Paris would move beyond the rules that governed the Kyoto Protocol, the first international pact aimed at starting a global response to climate change.

"It's impossible to argue that this is enough to deal with the threat," Groser said.

Frame said industrial sector targets would be "very important" in the global agreement, as national targets would be difficult to meet without industrial sectors adopting targets for climate change action that operated across borders.

Frame also struck an optimistic note about the potential to limit global climate change within the next century because while climate change was occurring, the likelihood of an "abrupt" change in global climatic conditions was very low in that timeframe.

The models also suggested that sudden changes need not be irreversible, while irreversible changes were unlikely to occur abruptly.

"There's nothing abrupt and irreversible in the next hundred years," said Frame. "There aren't any models that show something radically different will happen across that time period. Further out, we're not sure."

Conference organiser and executive director of the Environmental Defence Society Gary Taylor used the event to push his desire for a collaborative approach to climate change policy-making, akin to the EDS-initiated Land and Water Forum.

LAWF was successful in bringing traditional opponents to a consensus on freshwater management policies.

Groser endorsed any process that would lead to a less "caricatured" debate, and the collaborative approach was strongly endorsed by Local Government New Zealand, which issued a call for "urgent and more ambitious government action to address the effects of climate change."

The declaration calls for a "holistic economic assessment of New Zealand's vulnerability to impacts of climate change and the opportunities and benefits of responding to these."

The chief executive of the Ministry for the Environment, Vicky Robertson, said the ETS review would examine the "transitional measures", which cover large emitters, and "what else needs to happen to make this a good price signal."

Carbon prices in the New Zealand ETS are amongst the lowest in the world, at around $6.90 per tonne in recent days.

(BusinessDesk)