Yes, we can afford lower emissions

There are many reasons to be confused about climate change.

Obviously some people simply don't believe that humans are causing climate change, even when there is a mountain of evidence to support it, but even more perplexing is that there are people – the National Government for instance – who actually believe that humans are causing climate change but say we can't afford to do much about it. Excuse me?

The notion that reducing emissions will be very costly has been used to argue that we should adopt a low target in Copenhagen. This reactionary argument does not stand up to scrutiny.

The fact is it is possible for New Zealand to reduce its greenhouse emissions to 40% below 1990 levels by 2020 at low cost. In order to reach a target that is 40% below 1990 emissions levels, New Zealand must reduce emissions by 48 million tonnes (Mt) below the levels expected in 2020.

The Green Party recently researched opportunities to reduce emissions in all sectors of the economy and found 36.2 million tonnes (Mt) of reductions could be achieved in the next decade. Many of these solutions would actually save money – and others that are likely to cost much less than buying carbon credits on the international market. A further 11.8 Mt of offsets could be bought from overseas to make a total of 48 Mt.

The science shows that, to avoid dangerous climate change, developed countries need to reduce emissions collectively by the equivalent of 25%-40% below their 1990 level. Countries that start to put their economies on a low carbon track now will find it significantly easier to meet the much more stringent 2050 targets.

The following information has been adapted from the Green Parties' paper Getting There.

Electricity (Saving: 5.25 Mt)
Retire Huntly’s coal burning power station and replace with new geothermal, wind, and small-scale hydro that does not damage rivers. Implement interruptible load agreements with industry. Restrict Taranaki’s gas-fired station to running only in winter months. These steps are all part of the Electricity Commission’s Statement of Opportunities and regarded as economic and save 4.25 Mt. An aggressive programme of minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) for products like appliances will save householders money and save 1Mt.

Industrial and manufacturing fuels (Saving: 1.90 Mt)
Replace coal with economic wood waste fuels and some gas and invest in all efficiency projects that pay a return over their lifetime.

Transport (Saving: 4.70 Mt)
Set average fuel economy standards for light vehicles coming into NZ and progressively raise them from 2013 to 2019. Vehicles imported in 2020 would use half the fuel per 100km compared with current imports (3.00 Mt). Pursue the rest of the transport measures in the NZ Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy to encourage mode shift to public transport, walking and cycling (1.70 Mt).

Agriculture (Saving: 2.70 Mt)
Reducing the average dairy stocking rate from 2.83 cows/ha to 2.30 cows/ha will save 2.2 Mt and farmers are likely to enjoy medium-term profitability as well. Research shows that high dairy stocking rates are only profitable at milk prices over $5.50/kg where the return pays for the input costs of urea, feed, off farm grazing and animal health. The 10 year average pay-out is $5.20.

Meanwhile, proven management tools such as diet changes and better soil drainage can reduce nitrous oxide in sheep, beef and deer farms and save 0.5 Mt. There are several other solutions that could decrease methane and NO2 emissions which haven't been counted.

New forests (Saving: 10.90 Mt)
Forests planted since 1990 will capture and store enough carbon in 2012 to cover the rise in our emissions since 1990, but this will not last. New forest planting has almost ceased in the last ten years and harvesting of those 1990 forests will cause a spike in emissions from 2016 to 2030. An aggressive planting programme, which the forest industry says will occur at a carbon price of $25/tonne and policy certainty, could smooth out that spike. There are 1.8m ha of low producing steep hill country on sheep and beef farms where this could occur profitably. Planting 10,000 ha in 2010 and 30,000 ha/yr after that would store an additional 10.90 Mt tonnes of carbon in 2020. This would be a mix of pine, exotic hardwoods and softwoods as well as some new, permanent indigenous forest.

Pest control (Saving: 8.75 Mt)
If New Zealand signs up to article 3.4 of the Kyoto protocol we have the opportunity to control possums, goats and deer on 219,000 ha of DoC land and capture an additional 8.75 Mt. It is recognised that pests eat leaves and leaves store significant amounts of carbon; a pest-free forest is therefore another way in which we can responsibly reduce our liabilities. We calculate a further 2 Mt is achievable on private land.

Offsets (Saving: 11.80 Mt)
The Kyoto Protocol allows for countries to purchase emissions reductions from overseas if it is cheaper than making reductions domestically. This flexibility buys countries time to achieve their reductions while transferring much needed technology and finance to developing countries. We can take responsibility for the balance of our 40% target by purchasing credits from overseas. This amount represents less than a quarter of our total reductions.

Total (Saving: 48.00 Mt)
This represents a 40% reduction from 1990 levels. Achieving these targets will mean changing the way things are done and spending the money where necessary to help create a sustainable future. Whatever is spent now will be much less than what will need to spent if we put this off.

There are many other opportunities that are hard to quantify but which will undoubtedly present opportunities in the future: cows producing lower methane emissions; biogas plants on farms turning waste into energy; more use of electricity in transport; tidal and wave energy. Once we turn our emissions path around and start reducing, more and more opportunities will become available to reduce further.

Posted by Michael Lockhart on 12th November, 2009 | Comments | Trackbacks
Tags: General Sustainability, Climate Change

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