The Sustainability Council of NZ has just published the wittily titled report A Convenient Untruth [PDF], which finds that half of NZ’s Kyoto liabilities might be met if farmers used nitrification inhibitors – substances that markedly reduce the output of potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide from farm fertiliser use. From the media statement:
Emission reductions available from the dairy industry are large in relative terms and can be achieved quickly. After seventeen years of targets without measures to achieve them, and a lack of time to get serious emissions reductions from many other options, the availability of a cornucopia of cheap and rapidly adoptable agricultural options is a remarkable break.
Herald report here.
Meanwhile, David Parker expects government policy to reduce NZ’s Kyoto commitment by 50 per cent. In the absence of policy, do we take that on trust?
Oh, they have policy. It’s just that none of it has been implemented yet.
From my reading of the policy documents, the government expects about half of that reduction to come from nitrification inhibitors and lower fertiliser use. Unfortunately, that requires them getting a tax on nitrogen-based fertiliser past the farmer-lovers in Parliament, which I’m a little worried about.