The Ministry for the Environment is seeking feedback on its emissions reduction plan, which will set the direction for climate action for the next 15 years. The hope is the plan will chart a course for Aotearoa to meet its 2050 net-zero greenhouse gas emissions targets.

But the current plan won’t meaningfully reduce emissions from animal agriculture.

Emissions from agriculture make up 48 per cent of our greenhouse gas emissions, three quarters of which is biogenic methane, mostly from the dairy sector, sheep and beef cattle.

While methane is a short lived greenhouse gas, it is potent, with a warming potential more than 28 times that of carbon dioxide.

The Zero Carbon Act 2019 set targets to reduce emissions from biogenic methane to 24-46 per cent below 2017 levels by 2050, including 10 per cent below 2017 levels by 2030. Net emissions from all other greenhouse gases must be zero by 2050.

Despite the huge allowance that the climate-polluting dairy and meat industries have been handed, current projections suggest that under the proposed plan methane will only be reduced by 6.5% by 2030.

The Government recently announced that they would cut net emissions to 50% below gross 2005 levels by 2030. To reach this target, the Government plans to help reduce other countries’ emissions and count those reductions towards our target, rather than take meaningful action in Aotearoa.

If climate change is this generation’s nuclear-free moment, then we must tackle emissions from agriculture.

We know that animal agriculture has a detrimental impact on animals. It’s also destroying our natural environment and waterways. The Government is proposing to limit methane emissions from animals by relying on unproven technology. We need proven actions that will make an impact now. We need to urgently transition away from animal agriculture.