Producers urged to become industry advocates on methane emissions

Cattle Australia has called on producers to become greater industry advocates to drive a new conversation around livestock emissions.

At the height of Beef2024, the peak body has called on regulators to recalculate the way emissions are calculated, saying the original methodologies devised to reach net zero are not fit for purpose.

Adam Coffey, Deputy Chair of Cattle Australia and a producer who runs a 2500ha property near Miriam Vale, Queensland, said methane from ruminant animals should be treated differently due to its relatively short lifespan in the atmosphere and the cyclical role it plays in the natural growing cycle.

“Livestock emissions are not like an exhaust pipe. Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recognised there is a problem with putting all gases into the one bag of CO₂ equivalency,” he said.

He questioned the original methodology developed by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), and later adopted by the CSIRO in quantifying emissions.

“When they decided how to quantify enteric methane emissions from livestock, they put a cow in a glass box and you've got to offset or mitigate everything that comes from her,” Mr Coffey said.

“Now we know in a natural environment that's not quite how it works, so it sets an unachievable expectation and certainly the risk of unachievable targets set around the quantity of what those emissions are.”

CA believes current methodologies risk policy missteps and unfair burdens on a critical sector of the economy.

Caitlin McConnel, Senior Associate at law firm Clayton Utz and CA representative on the Regional Consultative Committee, said impending mandatory climate reporting rules would soon be rolled out to producers via the supply chain.

“The pressures we are feeling as producers are from third parties like banks and insurers,” Ms McConnel said.

“The language up to now has been about the potential investment opportunities that we're seeing, such as investment in renewable energy or extraordinary land prices as investors look at opportunities for agricultural land for carbon credits. All these discussions have been coined in the terms of diversification opportunities.

“What’s really crucial, and certainly what Cattle Australia is doing, is making sure primary producers are aware of their legal obligations. Measuring and verifying our emissions generally is no longer a social license or greater good, it's actually now very much a legal requirement.”

Cattle producers are critical players in the race to rapidly draw down carbon from the atmosphere to reduce rising global temperatures, Mr Coffey said.

While the industry is the “only sector capable of offsetting their own emissions”, a change in methodology would unlock the power of landholders to offset emissions from major polluters.

“We've got to recognise at a federal level that agriculture and the lands in which we operate in have a massive ability to sequester carbon. No one else can do that. You know you can't dig coal up out of the ground and then put it back in,” Mr Coffey said.

“At a federal level, our approach is to say we can be a service provider for large emitting industries, but if we set unrealistic expectations with an accounting system that doesn't reflect our emissions in a true manner, we are going to have to retain our offsetting ability to maintain market access.

“We can either continue on the policy path that we've been on, or we can have a bit of a rethink and be a solution provider for government in their net zero ambitions and for other heavy polluting sectors in their net zero ambitions.”

Alongside advocating for a change in emissions policy, Ms McConnel also said CA was advocating for food security to become a priority for the government.

She said a legal framework for food security is an important bulwark for producers against the wave of legislation around emissions reporting.

Recent court cases, such as a claim brought against NZ’s Fonterra and Dairy Holdings by a Maori elder, are examples of a new wave of litigation that could impact the agricultural sector.

That case, before the NZ Supreme Court, alleges the activities of the dairy companies, among others, were contributing to climate change which would impact the environment and, in turn, have adverse health effects on him and his people. Similar litigation is taking place in other jurisdictions.

“In terms of policy, these discussions and considerations need to be far broader than just ‘let's reduce emissions at all costs’,” Ms McConnel said.

“From a human rights and legal perspective, we have an obligation under the Paris Agreement to make sure we're not doing that to the detriment of our ability to produce food and fibre, and to satisfy the fundamental human right to food.”

Cattle Australia wants members and the wider industry to more strongly advocate for its position on emissions and “make a bit of noise” with an advocacy campaign targeting "mums and dads”.

“The stronger we can make this body, and essentially the more money we can get behind some of these issues, is where we'll fight this fight,” Mr Coffey said.