Agriculture could go carbon neutral to help Government targets

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THE Government’s climate change advisor has told Britain to commit to a 34 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 or risk irreversible climate change damage. Lord Adair Turner, chairman of the Government’s new Committee on Climate Change, launched the committee’s first report today (Monday, December 1).

He said: “The reductions required can be achieved at a very low cost to our economy; the cost of not achieving the reductions will be far greater.”

The CCC recommended reducing emissions by at least 34 per cent based on 1990 levels by 2020 and said this should be increased to 42 per cent once a global deal to reduce emissions can be achieved.

Agriculture accounts for seven per cent of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions – about the same as from aviation – which means farmers will have a key role to play.

Jonathan Scurlock, the NFU’s chief adviser on renewable energy and climate change, said: “Our industry has the potential to be completely CO² neutral, and to even have a positive balance, through carbon storage and if credited with the supply of low-carbon renewable energy and services to others.”

However, he stressed farming emissions were ‘fundamentally different’ from other parts of the economy.

“We have asked the Climate Change Committee and Government to take an economically viable and evidence-based approach to allocating emissions’ reduction targets, based on an objective analysis of the costs of abatement, and recognising the unique role agriculture has to play in providing renewable natural resources.”

He added that methane and nitrous oxide targets should be treated with common sense.

“With scientific advances, good management and continued assistance with extension, we may be able to deliver modest cuts in methane and nitrous oxide for the same level of agricultural output.

“However, scientific evidence suggests that the same level of cuts in all greenhouse gases is simply not achievable,” he said.

By William Surman