Govt will weaken methane target in defiance of Climate Commission – McClay

Analysis: Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says the Government will reset New Zealand’s methane emissions targets in line with the principle of “no additional warming”, a move the independent Climate Change Commission has warned will lead to “higher emissions and an increased amount of warming than the current target”.

While the Government’s review of the methane target’s consistency with the “no additional warming” principle was announced in April, ministers had previously said they would await the results of the review before deciding whether to change the target. Just three minutes before McClay made his comments on Thursday afternoon, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts reiterated that any conflicts between the review panel and the climate commission would be resolved after the panel reports back later this year.

McClay, however, said the Government would accept the advice of the review panel even if it conflicted with the commission’s advice.

“We’ve charged them with going through the work of giving the Government advice and we’ll accept that advice,” he said.

While the Government has said this is a review of the science of the methane target, independent experts have said there have been no new developments on the warming impact of methane in the atmosphere.

“Understanding of the physical science of greenhouse gases is improving all the time. However, there has not been an important or notable change in the understanding of the physical science of methane and how it warms the atmosphere” since the target was set in 2019, the Climate Change Commission wrote in April.

The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment also weighed in last year when farming lobby groups commissioned research on a “no additional warming” target.

“This is not ‘new science’ and it leaves us exactly as I had previously stated the position to be –
namely, that the sustained contribution to atmospheric warming that New Zealand makes
through the emission of agricultural methane is a matter of choice, and choosing to maintain
this warming at the current level is to claim a ‘right’ to a certain level of warming from
agriculture indefinitely,” the commissioner, Simon Upton, wrote at the time.

Both experts also concluded that a “no additional warming” target would result in higher methane emissions than the current targets, which are to cut methane emissions by 10 percent from 2017 levels by 2030 and by 24 to 47 percent by 2050.

“Changing the biogenic methane target from the current range to ‘no additional warming’ and keeping the net zero component of the current target as is would mean higher emissions and an increased amount of warming than the current target,” the commission wrote.

“If the country does not wish to cause more warming than under the current target, then revising the biogenic methane components of the target in a way that is consistent with no additional warming would require a much faster reduction in net emissions of all other greenhouse gases and greater reliance on forests to remove carbon dioxide. Such a shift in Aotearoa New Zealand’s approach to reducing emissions would likely lead to significant and different impacts on households, businesses, communities, and the economy.”

The commission said there was no justification for weakening New Zealand’s climate targets.

The National Party has also previously separately cited figures which suggest a “no additional warming” target would more than halve the ambition of New Zealand’s current targets, aiming for a 3.3 percent reduction by 2030 and a 10 percent reduction by 2050.

A target aligned with “no additional warming” would “lock in” the current level of warming caused by methane. According to both the climate commission and the environment commissioner, this is the majority of the warming caused by New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions to date.

The methane review panel, whose members were announced on Thursday, has been tasked with producing “estimates of biogenic methane emissions reductions needed in 2050 and 2100 to achieve and maintain a state of no additional warming from New Zealand’s biogenic methane emissions relative to 2017 levels of warming”.

It has specifically been barred from “making any conclusions or recommendations that go beyond performing the scientific review and providing the evidence-based advice required by these terms of reference. For example, the advice will not cover implications of any new proposed target on the broader climate strategy. It will not try to make values-based judgments about the burden-sharing responsibilities of different sectors or nations.”

McClay said New Zealand’s methane targets would be altered to be consistent with no additional warming. When asked about the conflict between that position and the commission’s advice, he said, “Well, under the law this year, [the commission] had to look at the targets, not the science. We campaigned on this.”

He said that whatever the panel says would be implemented. That directly contradicts what Watts told reporters just minutes earlier.

“That review is going to feed back policy recommendations by the end of the year and that will inform us in terms of our position around the resetting of those targets or not,” Watts had said.

Asked what he would do if the advice of the panel conflicted with the commission’s advice, Watts said that was a hypothetical yet to be worked through.

McClay’s statement also appears to conflict with a pledge Watts made prior to the election not to weaken the methane target.

“Our status quo is that we are committed to meeting our current targets around methane. That’s the starting point,” Watts said prior to the election.

“On the basis that we accept the current status quo, it doesn’t [imply] that we are going to default to a softening position. Absolutely not. Our view is we need to accelerate our ability to meet our targets.”

Labour’s climate spokesperson Megan Woods said McClay’s comments were worrying.

“My concern is that the Government is watering down our agricultural emissions reduction targets and this will mean we have to spend more money buying more international credits – which means we are paying other countries to decarbonise – or we have to put even more pressure on transport and industries here at home. This puts NZ jobs at risk,” she said.

“Either option is not in our nation’s best interests.”