Skip to main content

New Zealand sheep and beef almost carbon neutral

 Last year, on a vote of 119 to one, the New Zealand legislature  passed legislation committing to carbon neutrality by 2050. The bill, known as The Zero Carbon bill, creates a framework for getting to zero.


"We have to start moving beyond targets. We have to start moving beyond aspiration. We have to start moving beyond statements of hope and deliver signs of action. That is what this government is doing and proudly so,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said.


Part of that frame work involves reducing agricultural emissions. 


A study, released in October of 2020, reports that a significant portion of New Zealand agriculture is either nearly carbon neutral or, possibly, carbon neutral.


The study, led by Dr Bradley Case at Auckland University of Technology, estimates the woody vegetation on New Zealand sheep and beef farms is offsetting between 63 percent and 118 percent of their on-farm agricultural emissions.


These findings also demonstrate that the Green House Gas emissions from the beef and sheep industry in the country have declined by more than thirty percent in the last thirty years.


“Total annual on-farm agricultural emissions for sheep and beef production are +16,537 kt CO2e1, based on official governmental  figures,” write the study authors. “The woody vegetation on sheep and beef farms has annual equivalent GHG sequestration of between -10,394 kt CO2e and -19,665 kt CO2e.”


The authors point out that their study does not take into account soil carbon that may be being sequestered on beef and sheep farms. Neither does it look at the country’s other livestock production, such as dairy.


“This is a very significant report for the sheep and beef sector but further than that it is potentially a game changer for New Zealand’s quest to be carbon neutral by 2050,” the authors write in their summary. “The implications of this report are significant, both for continuing to build understanding of the overall greenhouse gas contribution of the sheep and beef sector, but also for farmers getting recognition for the sequestration happening on their farms.”


The full report can be read via this Tiny url: https://tinyurl.com/y2arp3z3


Tim

Central Minnesota Political


Comments

  1. Bruce ParkerNovember 30, 2020 at 10:46 AM

    This is interesting if true. I suspect that ruminant neutrality is more difficult than other animals. This reported neutrality may [not?] extend to beef / lamb exported to the US. Hopefully, a lesson for US beef producers.
    Bruce Parker

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Let us all walk in the foot steps of John Lewis

By John King In Selma, Alabama, on Sunday, March 7, 1965, John Lewis, standing in the lead of a long line of marchers, looked down from the crest of The Edmund Pettus Bridge at the line of police armed with clubs, whips and truncheons and said, “I am going to die here.” Lewis intended to lead the marchers from Selma to the capital Montgomery, to demand access to voting for Black people in Alabama. Sheriff Jim Clark lowered his gas mask and led the deputies, some on horseback and some on foot, into the line of marchers. Under swinging clubs and hooves trampling, Lewis was the first to go down. Women and children were not spared. Choking and blinded by tear gas, they were struck by clubs and truncheons wrapped with barbed wire. Lewis, with a fractured skull and a severe concussion, almost did die. The nearby Good Samaritan Hospital did not have enough beds to care for the injured marchers. A nation watched in horror as news footage of that bloody day appeared on T...
2 comments
Read more

More Republican dirty tricks

  As a Blue Dog Corporate Democrat, 7th District Rep. Collin Peterson’s votes in Congress go against the beliefs and convictions of progressive voters in our district. I’m one of those progressive 7th District voters. Like most average voters I rarely actually encounter my Member of Congress. However, I recall three encounters with Rep. Peterson over the many years I’ve been stuck with him. I met him at Mikey’s Restaurant, on Main Street in Long Prairie, when he was first campaigning for a seat in Congress. We were both young then and he was full of energy and inspired in me a sense of hope for positive change. Besides, I’d met the Republican incumbent. He was an older man who, it seemed, was operating on dead batteries. I was happy to vote for the energetic Peterson. Some years later I was a delegate to the DFL District convention in Bemidji. Peterson opposed a woman’s right to choose abortion. He was being challenged by a woman who supported the right to that choice. I gave...
Post a Comment
Read more

The bible should rule in the MN Senate, says Majority leader Gazelka

“A lot of my job frankly is stopping the onslaught of the left from continually moving us in a way that we know is contrary to the Bible,” Gazelka told the extremist Christian evangelical leader Andrew Wommack during an interview in November on Truth & Liberty, a weekly extreme right Christian on-line broadcast. Gazelka told Wommack that he is engaged in a spiritual battle as leader of the Minnesota Senate. Wommack in turn told Gazelka that opponents of conservative Christians are with “the spirit of Antichrist. What they call political correctness is nothing but demonic inspired and so … I can get by with stuff maybe you can’t.”  Gazelka didn’t disagree with the extremist opinion that opponents of conservative Christians are with the spirit of the Antichrist. He merely dissembled and claimed he was like Jesus who went among the sinners to convert them. Gazelka has always seen himself as a minister who intends to convert Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Sikhs, Bahai, ...
1 comment
Read more