Methane emissions: Australian cattle industry suggests shift from net zero target to ‘climate neutral’ approach
Methane emissions: Australian cattle industry suggests shift from net zero target to ‘climate neutral’ approach
The US cattle industry adopted a ‘climate neutral’ goal in 2021, but scientists say that ‘misses the point’ in keeping global temperature rises below 1.5C
So "Climate neutral" means not net zero and therefore not climate neutral. Is there nuance I'm missing?
Yes, it's their weaselly way of getting out of taking any significant action. Which is important, because animal agriculture is one of largest contributors to co2 and methane emissions.
The Cattle Australia deputy chair, Adam Coffey, said producers were “after recognition that our [methane] emissions are inherently different from cumulative fossil (CO2) emissions”.
Oh yeah? Different how? At least that isn’t followed by some industry-approved scientific word game and the reader is free to look up methane on their own.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Cattle Australia is lobbying the red meat sector to ditch its net zero target in favour of a “climate neutral” goal that would require far more modest reductions in methane emissions.
The push follows a report released last year by Dr Brad Ridoutt from the CSIRO, which found the industry would fall short of the net zero target and recommended it adopt a climate neutral goal instead.
The report’s lead author, the University of California Davis environmental scientist Dr Caspar Donnison, told Guardian Australia that claims of being climate neutral were misleading.
Ridoutt declined to comment to Guardian Australia but, in a statement, a CSIRO spokesperson said there were different methods for tracking greenhouse pollutants and it was “up to industry to decide on the path to take to reduce emissions”.
Prof Myles Allen is the head of atmospheric, oceanic and planetary physics at the University of Oxford and chief architect of the methane model on which the climate neutral target is based.
Allen and other climate scientists who spoke to Guardian Australia said industries should adopt separate targets for each greenhouse gas emitted based on their varying impact on global heating.
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