New Zealand has unveiled its plan to tax burping sheep and cattle in an effort to combat one of the country’s biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions. If the plan materialises, New Zealand will be the first country to charge farmers for methane emissions from their livestock.
New Zealand is home to more than five million people. There are about 10 million cattle and 26 million sheep in the country.
About half of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture, primarily methane.
However, agricultural emissions had not previously been included in New Zealand’s carbon trading scheme. This was criticized by those who urged the government to do more to combat global warming.
“There is no doubt that we need to reduce the amount of methane we emit into the atmosphere, and an effective emissions pricing system for agriculture will play a key role in how we achieve this,” said New Zealand climate change minister James Shaw.
According to the proposal, farmers will have to pay for their emissions from 2025. The plan also includes incentives for farmers to reduce emissions through food additives, and planting trees on farms can be used to offset emissions.
Andrew Hoggard, a dairy farmer and national president of the New Zealand Farmers Federation, told the BBC he approved of the proposals.
“We’ve been working on this for years with the government and other organizations to come up with a plan that doesn’t harm agriculture in New Zealand.”
“But you know, like all these multiparty deals, there’s always going to be some frogs you have to swallow,” he added.
Hoggard said the details of the plan’s implementation have yet to be decided.
The country’s Ministry of Environment said the money from the tax will be invested in research, development and advisory services for farmers.
Last month, New Zealand’s finance minister announced 10 billion reais for climate change initiatives, which will be funded by a carbon emissions trading system that taxes pollutants.
Investors managing $14 trillion in assets urged the United Nations to create a global plan to make the agriculture sector sustainable.
FAIRR Initiative said in a letter published by Reuters to the director general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the UN agency is well positioned to lead the creation of a plan to include one of the largest sources of food and agriculture. harmful emissions. into the air.
Methane is the second most common greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide (CO2), which is responsible for one-third of the current warming attributed to human activities. Each methane molecule has a stronger warming effect on the atmosphere than each CO2 molecule.
At the COP26 environmental conference held in Glasgow last year, the US and the European Union agreed to reduce gas emissions by 30% by 2030. More than 100 countries have joined the initiative, including New Zealand.
How is methane spread?
About 40% of the methane comes from natural sources such as marshes, but most comes from a range of human activities such as agriculture, livestock and even landfills.
- Gas emitted by cows, which is increasingly contributing to global warming
One of its biggest resources is the production, transportation and use of natural gas. Since 2008, there has been a large increase in methane emissions, which researchers believe is linked to the explosion in gas exploration activity in parts of the US, known as fracking.
Methane in the atmosphere reached record levels in 2019, about two and a half times higher than pre-industrial levels.
What worries scientists is that methane is drastically warming the planet. In a hundred-year period, it warmed the planet 28 to 34 times faster than CO2.
Over a 20-year period, it is about 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide per unit mass. However, there is much more CO2 in the atmosphere than methane, and individual CO2 molecules can stay there for hundreds of years.
source: Noticias
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