Green Daily

New Zealand, one of the world’s largest dairy exporters and a signatory of the Global Methane Pledge, this weekend watered down its 2050 target for cutting methane emissions from livestock and farming activities.

Today’s newsletter breaks down New Zealand’s new pledge and shows why the move could set a dangerous precedent.

Plus, we talk with the author of a new book on how the world got hooked on plastics and we interview an expert to understand why the US needs Chinese batteries.

For unlimited access to climate and energy news, including full versions of these stories, please subscribe.

A weaker methane plan

By Aaron Clark and Laura Millan

New Zealand has weakened its 2050 methane target for livestock and other farm sources. The new goal requires farmers to cut emissions 12-24% from 2017 levels, down from 24-47% previously.

The country is on track to achieve a 24% reduction in livestock methane emissions by mid-century, the government said over the weekend as it announced the new target. Overall, New Zealand could be slightly below net zero by 2050, it said, while noting that “since 2050 is so far in the future, there’s a high degree of uncertainty around these projections.”

The reduced methane target sparked criticism from scientists and campaigners, who worried this could lead other major dairy exporters to lower their targets.

“New Zealand is setting a dangerous precedent that other governments must not follow,” said Paul Behrens, a professor at the University of Oxford in the UK. “Cutting methane, a short-lived but highly potent greenhouse gas, is not an optional extra — it will deliver the rapid reductions in warming needed to avoid dangerous tipping points.”

Methane emissions account for a third of the planet’s warming since the industrial revolution and reducing them can quickly slow temperature increases in the near term and increase productivity in the energy and agriculture sectors. While methane has 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide, its presence in the atmosphere is also short-lived — it breaks down after about 12 years, versus centuries for CO2.

More than 150 countries including New Zealand, Ireland, the US and Brazil have signed the Global Methane Pledge, committing to take voluntary action to reduce emissions at least 30% from 2020 levels by 2030. Without any action, emissions would increase 13% between 2020 and 2030.

New Zealand should at least commit to a 35-47% reduction in methane emissions by 2050, said Mark Howden, an emeritus professor at the Australian National University and a vice chair on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“Countries adopting a similar pathway of pulling back on methane pledges would likely increase global temperatures by 0.2 degrees Celsius,” Howden said. That would “generate climate changes that would be problematic for agriculture across the globe.”

Cows in New Zealand Photographer: Brendon O'Hagan

The revised target is based on the controversial idea of “no additional warming,” a concept used by a small group of scientists who have been pushing an alternative way of calculating the global warming impact of methane. These scientists argue that if New Zealand’s methane emissions are stabilized, then the climate would stabilize too.

“Every ton of methane emitted makes the world warmer than it would otherwise be,” Howden said. “By contrast the concept of ‘no additional warming’ is scientifically problematic and difficult for policy and the public to interpret.”

New Zealand is the first signatory of the Global Methane Pledge to water down its target at a time that’s seen as a turning point for climate action, with the US retreating from the Paris Agreement for the second time and other countries presenting emissions targets that keep the planet on the path toward a catastrophic level of warming. Climate momentum in the private sector is easing too, with the world’s biggest climate alliance for banks ceasing operations earlier this month.

“New Zealand has signaled to the world’s biggest meat and dairy producers that it’s fine to ignore the largest human-made source of methane,” said Shefali Sharma, a global agriculture campaigner with Greenpeace International. “Other major livestock exporting countries will now feel empowered to follow suit, which risks sparking a race to the bottom and threatens to derail global climate action.”

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A glass half-empty

24%

What was New Zealand’s lower range for reducing livestock methane emissions and has become its upper limit under the new target

Lowering methane goals

“It’s a great way of shooting yourself in the foot.”

Mark Howden

Vice chair on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Cutting methane emissions has two advantages: it can slow global warming and increase economic productivity in the agriculture and energy sectors

Fake plastic trees

By Leslie Kaufman

The Wall Street Journal’s Saabira Chaudhuri began reporting on how plastic bottles transformed the bottled water market, turning an occasional restaurant treat into an everyday staple. But that change came at a steep cost: more single-use plastic in landfills.

She discovered that companies such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Nestle had been aware of the problem for decades. Chaudhuri began tracing how plastic waste became so pervasive — and why it persists despite public backlash. Her book Consumed: How Big Brands Got Us Hooked on Plastic was released in the US on Oct. 7. We spoke with her about the book and potential solutions to the plastic waste crisis.

A bale of crushed plastic bottles. Photographer: Luke Duggleby/Bloomberg

Q: You argue that the origin of the problem is disposability — that trash itself became a business model, not a byproduct.

After WWII, the industry made a conscious pivot. Lloyd Stouffer, an industry figure, openly said plastics should move from durable goods to disposables because companies make more money selling something a thousand times than once.

So the industry sold us on hygiene, convenience, modernity, even feminism — less ironing, easier cooking. Some of these [benefits] really did improve lives, so plastics shouldn’t be demonized wholesale. But companies also saw trash piling up and largely ignored it.

Read the full interview on Bloomberg.com.

More from Green

A worker inspects a rock sample at a rare earth exploration site in Brazil Photographer: Victor Moriyama/Bloomberg

China’s recently announced raft of restrictions on the export of batteries could have major impacts on US companies, analysts say. Beijing has previously used rare earths as a tool in the trade war with Washington. But with its commanding position in the battery industry, China has identified another point of leverage in trade talks as the US increasingly needs energy storage to support data centers and stabilize the grid.

The restrictions, which take effect Nov. 8, span a wide swath of the battery supply chain. They include large-scale lithium-ion batteries used for energy storage as well as cathode and anode materials and battery manufacturing machinery, all technologies where China has a robust lead.

As with past restrictions, the new rules require battery companies to receive licenses from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce before exporting their goods. That system allows Beijing to selectively weaponize exports.

“While it doesn’t impact as wide a range of industries as other Chinese export controls, the dominance of China in battery supply chains means they can squeeze hard and it can be felt pretty quickly by US companies,” said Matthew Hales, an analyst specializing in trade and supply chains at BloombergNEF.

Read the full story.

Wildfire disasters are becoming more frequent and severe globally, costing more human lives and racking up more economic damage than in previous decades, according to a new study by the University of Tasmania.

The US is canceling a huge solar project in Nevada, the latest effort by President Donald Trump to limit renewable energy development.

Worth a listen

Greg Jackson Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

The UK used to be a shining example of how to act on climate change. It created one of the world’s first climate laws in 2008, which bound the government to reduce emissions on tight deadlines. That law used to have cross-party support, but that’s no longer the case with politicians trying to make climate a wedge issue. Greg Jackson, chief executive officer of the UK’s largest energy retailer, Octopus Energy, joins Akshat Rathi on the Zero podcast to discuss his plan to bring down bills and keep the public on the green side.