Government lowers methane target, rules out methane taxes
The government has announced new “science-based” methane targets for 2050, which it says will provide exporters with a clear pathway to reduce emissions while maintaining productivity and trade competitiveness.
The target would be set at a range of 14-24 percent below 2017 levels by 2050, reflecting the findings of the independent Methane Science Review released in 2024, it said on Sunday.
The new target is well below the previous legislation, which aimed for a 24-47 percent reduction.
Agriculture and Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay said the government had worked closely with industry and accepted a range of advice to determine a “practical target”.
“Today we’re delivering a practical, fair pathway that recognises New Zealand agriculture efficiency, protects jobs and production, and upholds our climate commitments,” McClay said.
The Climate Change Commission (CCC), the independent body tasked with advising the government on emissions, previously said the target set by the 2024 review was not high enough.
The CCC instead recommended even greater methane reductions of 35-47 percent by 2050.
SCUMBAGS!
SCUMBAG GOVERNMENT!
Folding for their corporate farmer mates to once again let those fuckers off the hook for the pollution they are creating that is burning the planet!!!!
Once again this anti-environment Government strangles the common goof for their Corporate Farmer mates!
This Government is in total denial about climate change and it’s impact on our environment…
New Zealand’s oceans are warming 34% faster than the global average, with NZ$180bn (US$104bn) worth of housing at risk of flooding, a new report about the nation’s marine environment has revealed.
The ministry of the environment and Stats NZ’s three-yearly update, Our Environment 2025, collates statistics, data and research across five domains – air, atmosphere and climate, freshwater, land, and marine – to paint a picture of the state of New Zealand’s marine environment.
The latest in the series, Our Marine Environment 2025, painted a sobering picture for the country’s oceans and coasts – one defined by warming and rising seas, intensifying marine heatwaves and ocean acidification, brought about by global heating.
…look at what is happening in Antartica…
Scientists discovered something alarming seeping out from beneath the ocean around Antarctica
Planet-heating methane is escaping from cracks in the Antarctic seabed as the region warms, with new seeps being discovered at an “astonishing rate,” scientists have found, raising fears that future global warming predictions may have been underestimated.
Huge amounts of methane lie in reservoirs that have formed over millennia beneath the seafloor around the world. This invisible, climate-polluting gas can escape into the water through fissures in the sea floor, often revealing itself with a stream of bubbles weaving their way up to the ocean surface.
Relatively little is known about these underwater seeps, how they work, how many there are, and how much methane reaches the atmosphere versus how much is eaten by methane-munching microbes living beneath the ocean.
But scientists are keen to better understand them, as this super-polluting gas traps around 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide in its first 20 years in the atmosphere.
…and what’s this Government’s response? Let their Corporate Farmer mates pollute without consequence!
Labour foolishly (enabled by James Shaw) tried to cut deals with Farmers and Farmers turned and shat in our face!
Dark money from the agricultural industry soaks into the astro-turf Taxpayer’s Union stable of clients and enables Groundswell to stop any environmental improvements.
National disgracefully appointed a Dairy Industry Stooge as the Chief Scientist while bring back the 100% Pure greenwash tourism campaign!
Just consider the manner in which Corporate Dairy have seized control of NZ’s political right…
The Climate Change Commission recommends methane cuts of 35-47%. However, under pressure from lobby groups like Federated Farmers – whose ex-President Andrew Hoggard is now an ACT Party MP – the Government established a separate panel to review the methane target in line with this controversial tool. That panel landed on a much weaker methane target.
…this total policy capture by polluter interests is the reason we are being attacked on the global stage by International Climate Scientists…
Scientists accuse New Zealand and Ireland of trying to cover up livestock emissions
Leading climate scientists have accused politicians in New Zealand and Ireland of using an “accounting trick” to back their sheep and cattle industries, warning their support for methane-emitting livestock could undermine global efforts to fight climate change. In an open letter shared with the Financial Times, 26 climate scientists from around the world warned that New Zealand’s proposed new methane targets risk setting a dangerous precedent.
…that’s right!
The Corporate Dairy industry has spent millions donating to National and putting dark money into Right Wing astroturf organisations to shut down any meaningful climate emissions targets that the rest of the world has noticed the policy corruption and are now calling us out.
We are being attacked internationally for being a climate criminal all because National refuse to stand up to their Corporate Dairy interests.
The Carbon Capture ‘technology’ that National have banked all our emission offsets on doesn’t work…
Carbon capture: Pivotal project for cutting greenhouse gas emissions looks shaky
A critical part of the government’s plan for cutting greenhouse gas emissions over the next five years appears to have fallen over.
…and in the last budget National cut 50% to climate finance, barely any cuts to emissions, all while slashing foreign aid for our Pacific brothers and sisters by cutting climate aid by $100m.
This Government is a Climate Denial Government who are refusing to do anything about the coming adaptation because they are paid by the polluters.
A cow shits the same as 14 humans, we have 10 million cows, that’s the equivalent of 140million humans pissing and shitting into our rivers!
We must brutally take the Framing Industry to court for their environmental crimes, which is exactly what happened last month…
Climate Legal Action Necessary Response To Govt Inaction – NZCTU
The New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi welcomes the legal action taken against the Minister of Climate Change by a coalition of legal experts as an important step in ensuring that Aotearoa meets its climate action obligations.
“We strongly support legal action to ensure that the Government is held to account for its legal obligations under the Climate Change Response Act,” said NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff.
“The union movement is deeply concerned by the Emissions Reduction Plan 2026-2030, which contains no significant policies to reduce emissions and will fail to get New Zealand meaningfully closer to our 2050 net-zero commitment.
“The actions – or lack of them – by this Government on climate change are the actions of climate deniers, not responsible leaders.
“Workers and communities need real political leadership that combats global emissions and invests in creating a just transition for industries and workers. We need leadership that develops and upholds long term consensus, not more U-turns.
“Instead, we have a government that cancelled 35 climate policies without consulting the public first, as required by law. Robust public engagement is essential.
“Climate policy is yet another area where this Government is prioritising corporate interests over democratic accountability and the interests of working people.
“Evidence is clear that a near-total focus on tree planting through vast pine forests is not a sufficient response – we must reduce emissions at source.
“Alongside the weak emissions budget, in Budget 2025 we saw a total abdication of responsibility on climate change and ensuring a Just Transition for working people in an increasingly volatile world.
“The NZCTU supports bold climate action to reduce emissions, adapt to the changing climate, and transition to a zero emissions economy that provides full employment for workers,” said Wagstaff.
…we must forget negotiating with them and use the law to force them to change their polluter ways.
If you are not incandescent with rage, you are not paying attention..
This Government is actively helping the planet burn now and you allowed that because you were angry at Jacinda.
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“Evidence is clear that a near-total focus on tree planting through vast pine forests is not a sufficient response – we must reduce emissions at source.”
If that just means less cows it also means the country has less foreign exchange for ordinary people to buy shit at the warehouse.
What is the physical plan to reduce emissions by cow or what is the farm produce alternative for each cow? Unless there is some comprehensive plan to move replace the income lost to an emmissions target then farmers can only personally envisage lost income. It doesn’t matter that the pollution shouldn’t occur in the first place.
Unlike city dwellers they see their income being reduced to save the planet. Meanwhile city dwellers keep building global warming, fashionable, black, houses rather than heat reflecting, white, houses.
Yeah right, black houses are everywhere, our cities look like galactic black holes.
The most efficient food system is to eat plants directly instead of getting second hand protein through an animal. Have you never compared the gross margin of horticulture to livestock farming? The land type and labor availability have the most influence farm type so it’s the lack of imagination rather than the options available that determines the income available so less cows could mean more foreign exchange if done well. You ignore that dairy farmers are freeloading on the environment with methane , nitrate and other waste pollution as it appears that other taxpayers are expected to pay the cost. If my business model was stealing peoples stuff so I could sell it back to them I would expect to get locked up, dairy farmers and their supporters somehow think that trashing the environment, the climate and the health of those who overindulge in dairy products is not their problem and muppets like you repeat their propaganda because you are selfish.
So you’re saying, “let them eat plants!”
Workers need meat and dairy. Try shearing, day labouring, building, civil, playing league without protein-dense foods. https://youtu.be/qZKDjElk7Ts
As you say, this is the most self-serving government ever. I thought that some of our trade agreements had climate clauses in them so I expect that this decision will cost them more than they expect to save. As Craig Renney points out, the problem is a lack of investment in productive assets that is stopping NZ from improving its worth, so we have a government that decides to repeat the Bill English mistakes while rewarding polluters and imposing extra costs on the rest of the population.
As most of our conservation-minded voters have been saying over and over again, it’s clear this thick-skinned, arrogant CoC mob are never going to change so time for New Zealanders to pick which path they wish to go down – the current “ME ME ME all about power/money”, or the – “Let’s look after our country and our planet and share any wealth”. Almost impossible to get this message through to the greedies/graspers/thickos, mostly on the right, but we must never give up trying. I was dismayed at the level of the Antartica methane discovery – no doubt it didn’t even register with many of the CoC enablers and the self-absorbed sorted! Easy for Trump/Peters to deny climate change, they will both be long gone when it hits their young ones as it will be for me and mine; difference is I care enough to do what I can to limit this.
Oh God….
‘Oh God….’
No good calling me. I gave you bastards freewill and you fucked it up!
Ba ha! Soz then
Dairy cows in NZ produce 60kg of faeces every day. There are 5 million cows recruited in the dairy, roughly the same as the number of people.
People produce about 150g of poo per day on average. Bomber might be a bit more according to the poisoned dwarf called Winnie.
So cows produce 360 times as much as humans. Or the pollution in human terms is 5 million cows = 1,8 billion people.
So we produce more manure than China.
Considering a dairy cow eats between 16 to 25 kgs of dry matter a day I struggle to see how a cow shits twice its intake a day
Jenni Craig eat ya heart out
It also drinks 70 L of water a day and in case you never stepped in one a cow pat is not dry matter.
So not only 60kg of poo, gallons of urine, clouds of methane most of which ends up in the environment we all own.
Here I’ll make it simple for you.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/88894994/simple-answer-to-nitrogen-dilemma
So, that 60kg of shit is only part of the environmental mess. That excludes the urine, the 70L of fresh water it consumes each day, and the clouds of methane it belches constantly.
Like them or not farmers are the reason New Zealand has a first world income and is still a first world country, around 35 percent of our exports are agricultural, (25 percent tourism and export education)
How do you replace that?
Like them or not farmers were part of the reason New Zealand had a first world income and was a first world country. Around 35 percent of our exports are agricultural, (25 percent tourism and export education) and net proceeds are mostly sucked straight out of the country by foreign banks and foreign owned corporations.
You have numbers to back up your assertions. No doubt there are problems with foreign banks and corporations, but what would happen to the economy if the primary sector was sent into a tailspin by climate change policies? I’m not saying farmers are not polluters or climate change is not real, but will New Zealanders sacrifice a far lower standard of living to do their fair share in fighting climate change. That is where the rubber meets the road.
“You have numbers to back up your assertions.”
how self-unaware can you get?
Mark “agriculture” is a very broad term which is convenient for dairy farmers. Not all farmers pollute equally. Do sheep produce anyway near the methane cows do? Do dry stock require the same level of water table pollution as dairy?
And in terms of GDP what does dairy actually contribute? Tourism absolutely shits all over dairy in terms of GDP.
Mark “agriculture” is a very broad term which is convenient for dairy farmers. Not all farmers pollute equally. Do sheep produce anyway near the methane cows do? Do dry stock require the same level of water table pollution as dairy?
And in terms of GDP what does dairy actually contribute? Tourism absolutely shits all over dairy in terms of GDP.
Nationals at the moment are trying to appease their voting block the middle and the sorted as they are tanking in the polls, NZF is cannibalising their COC mates votes, so the gnats have to keep the farmers on side and are trying to implement policies that help the middle who ae turning on them as our economy is sinking.
What do our dairy cows and the CoC have in common? they are both heavy emitters of gas coming out of their backsides.
And when the water is all to polluted for the cows to drink on a 35degree day with no shade how will the farmers make a dollar then .No clean fresh water no cows and no income.
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