Leading climate policy expert calls for NZ to rethink agriculture

A global climate policy expert is calling for New Zealand to rethink its agricultural sector to reduce emissions.

Hillary Laureate and global sustainability consultant Aimee Christensen told Q+A that industrial countries - like Aotearoa - are struggling to let go of their industries and acknowledge their contributions to historic emissions.

“The industrialised countries are doing far too little to address their historic emissions and causing the challenges, the impacts, and the suffering that's already happening around the world," she said.

“Unfortunately, it's the people who have contributed the least to our climate challenge who are suffering the most – in emerging markets and developing countries; people who are living in low island states; people in Pakistan, with one-third of that nation having just recently been underwater and trying to rebuild."

According to the Climate Action Tracker, New Zealand is highly insufficient when it comes to its effectiveness of reaching the goal of 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels as outlined in the Paris Agreement. Currently, the planet is at 1.2 degrees.

Christensen says the world has a "very short window to act, and New Zealand is off track" to reach its climate action target.

She called on the Government to use this poor profile as an opportunity to reassess how we operate our major sectors - especially dairy, which is our largest source of emissions.

“There is the opportunity to turn to regenerative practices where you can move the cows around in an intensive grazing practice," she said.

“It restores carbon in the soil, creating real climate benefits and reducing the footprint of that dairy that you're growing as well as, of course, capturing the methane to generate power."

Christensen also suggested that the country consider the type of meat and dairy it exports, as well as the potential to develop things like lab-grown meat and milk, which leave smaller carbon footprints.

"It will be a more cost-effective and a more diversified agricultural opportunity for New Zealand," she said.

She believes that the Government and private sector must work together to reduce emissions caused by agriculture by providing Government-funded grants for companies to try out new "regenerative practices with reduced risk" and "remove the risk from the private sector".

“It needs to be a collaborative, honest conversation and the Government needs to wield some heft there,” Christensen said.

She believes that while the future for climate action looks grim, people must have hope as a species that governments around the world can unite and save the planet.

“I've always had to have hope, and I've seen it – I’ve seen fearless leadership by government leaders, by business leaders in the face of 'was this necessarily going to be the short-term economic, politically easy decision?'" she said.

“We just have to figure out, together, how do we make it happen. So I absolutely believe that we will. There is already suffering, so we need to move quickly, but I believe that we will."