‘The Climate Commission’s recommendation to reduce livestock numbers by 15% by 2030 is not sensible, practical or
justified,’ Robin Grieve, chairman of FARM (Facts About Ruminant Methane) said today.
Reducing livestock numbers will invariably cost New Zealand export income and mean that less food is grown. With an
increasing global population that needs feeding this policy is not only anti human and selfish, it will also cause more
global emissions as other countries with less efficient farming systems will have to produce the food New Zealand does
not. Such a recommendation by the Commission is as silly as New Zealand reducing emissions by cutting Air New Zealand flights
and letting Qantas take up the slack.
Reducing livestock might reduce carbon emissions but the bulk of these carbon emissions are sourced from methane and are
not causing the warming the system attributes to them. It is a common mistake for people to assume that the carbon
emissions sourced from fossil fuel have the same impact as carbon emissions sourced from ruminant methane, but they do
not and the Commission should not make that mistake. The Commission by making its recommendation is in fact denying the
science that ruminant methane emissions are cyclical and under New Zealand’s stable herd situation are atmospherically
neutral and not responsible for increases in global temperature.
The goal of the Paris Agreement was to reduce emissions to stop global temperature increasing more than 2 degrees; New
Zealand’s ruminant methane emissions reduced to the point they stopped increasing global temperatures years ago, if in
fact they ever did have an impact. There is no need to reduce them further.
By reducing livestock numbers all New Zealand will be doing is reducing emissions of methane which do not need to reduce
which is supreme virtue signaling and the height of folly.