NZ Could Lead World In Methane Reduction Research
March 25th, 2009
One of NZ’s most respected climate change scientists says NZ is wasting an extraordinary opportunity to lead the world in research on reducing methane emissions from ruminant animals. Professor Martin Manning, head of the NZ Climate Change Institute at Victoria University and long-serving former NZ representative on the International Panel on Climate Change made this impassioned claim during oral submissions to the special select committee on the ETS.
Manning argues NZ emits proportionally more methane – a powerful greenhouse gas – than any other country, “so why aren’t we doing our own stuff?” We have the critical mass of science and the economic incentive to create a high value, innovative, world-leading industry. The result would benefit NZ farmers first in a carbon-constrained world by creating farming techniques that substantially lower methane emissions. This result would be all the more possible everywhere if farmers use high quality broadband to manage farm information.
Rice-growing countries would want this technology, as well as traditional NZ competitors in the dairy, sheep and beef markets. Manning argues the result could result in significant new, wealth-creating relationships with research and academic institutions in Asia, where we will do more and more business. He says “40% of methane is coming from livestock and rice. We could wipe out 60% of it in 30 years.” National MP Paul Hutchison is clearly sympathetic, but chided the university and research sector for not having a more nationally coordinated approach to climate change science, given the urgency for good information to inform policy-making.
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