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A global team of scientists, including one from New Zealand, has estimated that emissions of non-CO2 greenhouse gases from agriculture should be reduced by about 1 gigatonne (1 billion tonnes)&#160;annually by 2030 to help achieve the goals set at last year&#8217;s global climate change conference in&#160;Paris. The Paris conference confirmed a long-term goal of limiting warming from climate change to&#160;well below 2&#176;C above pre-industrial levels.
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The authors of the study argue that focusing emissions reductions only on sectors such as energy&#160;and transport (where emissions will need to be reduced close to zero well before the end of the&#160;century) would be insufficient to meet the temperature goal set by the new climate agreement.&#160;They say that agriculture must also play its part, proposing that the global institutions concerned&#160;with agriculture and food security set a sectoral emissions target for agriculture linked to the 2&#176;C&#160;warming limit. Yet their detailed analysis revealed a major gap between the existing mitigation&#160;options for the agriculture sector and the reductions needed: currently and readily available&#160;interventions would only deliver between 21-40% of the mitigation required.&#160;<br />
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Dr Andy Reisinger, co-author of this study and Deputy Director of the New Zealand Agricultural&#160;Greenhouse Gas Research Centre (NZAGRC), says the study serves as both a benchmark and wakeup&#160;call. &#8220;More than one hundred countries have indicated in their national climate change targets&#160;that they would like to reduce emissions from agriculture, but few have a clear plan for how to&#160;achieve this or how much they can achieve. We know that increasing the adoption of best practices&#160;for efficient and productive farm systems is a key element, but these alone are not enough. It will&#160;take much more coordinated efforts between national and global institutions concerned with&#160;agriculture and food security to make the progress that is needed.&#8221;<br />
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Dr Reisinger says that the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (GRA), a&#160;voluntary international initiative instigated by New Zealand, is making important contributions to&#160;this goal. &#8220;For many developing countries, food security, not greenhouse gas mitigation, is an&#160;overriding concern. Our work in the GRA is focussed on demonstrating that there are important&#160;synergies between increasing the productivity and efficiency of their farm systems and reducing the&#160;emissions per unit of food they produce. The more we can engage those countries in a conversation&#160;that encompasses both those elements, the better we can ensure that there is enough food to feed&#160;the planet without putting the planet itself at serious risk.&#8221;&#160;<br />
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With support from the New Zealand Government, the NZAGRC is working with the Food and&#160;Agriculture Organisation in a United Nations sponsored project to identify regionally tailored ways of&#160;reducing greenhouse gas emissions from key livestock systems through increasing productivity and&#160;efficiency. Current focus areas are the southern cone of South America, East and West Africa, and&#160;South Asia. An extension of this approach is planned to South-East Asia.&#160;<br />
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But even with increased efficiency gains, Dr Reisinger says, new and additional solutions to reduce&#160;emissions without compromising food security will be needed. The government-funded NZAGRC is&#160;working in partnership with the industry-government joint venture, the Pastoral Greenhouse Gas&#160;Research Consortium, to develop additional ways for farmers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions&#160;from livestock. This includes the identification of naturally lower emitting animals for targeted&#160;breeding, development of animal-safe compounds that can suppress the generation of methane in&#160;the rumen of animals, and searching for ways to reduce emissions of nitrous oxide and to increase&#160;the amount of carbon stored in pastoral soils.<br />
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Dr Harry Clark, Director of the NZAGRC and Co-Chair of the Livestock Research Group of the GRA,&#160;says that this study supports the approach that New Zealand has adopted for reducing agricultural&#160;GHG emissions. Improvements in production efficiency are a crucial component of reducing&#160;agricultural greenhouse gas emissions but they are not enough on their own, given the increasing&#160;global population and associated demand for food. Hence the NZAGRC and the PGgRc have focussed&#160;on the development of new technologies that can make a large contribution to reducing overall&#160;emissions from agriculture. &#8220;New Zealand, in a partnership between government, science and&#160;industry is at the forefront of developing such new technologies. If successfully developed and&#160;implemented, these technologies will have global as well as local impact and would make the type of&#160;contribution the authors point out is needed for the world to achieve the target it set in Paris&#8221;.<br />
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<strong>The full paper will be available at&#160;</strong><a style="word-wrap: break-word; color: #86b83c" href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13340" target="_blank"><strong>http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13340</strong></a><br />
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For more information please contact:<br />
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<strong>Andy Reisinger&#160;</strong><br />
021 613 125<br />
<a style="word-wrap: break-word; color: #86b83c" href="mailto:andy.reisinger@nzagrc.org.nz?subject=Media%20release%3A%2017%20May%202016" target="_blank">andy.reisinger@nzagrc.org.nz</a><br />
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<strong>Harry Clark&#160;</strong><br />
029 351 8111<br />
<a style="word-wrap: break-word; color: #86b83c" href="mailto:harry.clark@nzagrc.org.nz?subject=Media%20Release%3A%2017%20May%202016" target="_blank">harry.clark@nzagrc.org.nz</a><br />
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<strong>Visit:</strong><br />
<a style="word-wrap: break-word; color: #86b83c" href="/" target="_blank">www.nzagrc.org.nz</a><br />
<a style="word-wrap: break-word; color: #86b83c" href="http://www.globalresearchalliance.org/" target="_blank">www.globalresearchalliance.org</a>
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