Methane’s role needs to be reassessed, Cattle Australia says

Cattle Australia is pushing for change to how methane cattle is evaluated by regulators, but MLA says the industry is best sticking to internationally recognised measures.

Cattle Australia is pushing for change to how methane is evaluated by regulators, to reflect its role in the biogenic cycle.

And, the group contends, beef farms’ role in sequestering carbon was not fully valued in terms of net emissions.

This week the peak body called for methane to be formally recognised as part of a short-lived biogenic cycle, also known as the GWP* method.

Currently, Meat & Livestock Australia’s Carbon Neutral 2030 project uses the internationally recognised measure, GWP100, which acknowledges methane’s ongoing warming role over 100 years.

According to research reviews, Agriculture Victoria and the University of Melbourne define methane from agriculture as biogenic, which is part of a balanced carbon cycle within a farm environment. This is opposed to fossil methane from fossil fuel production which contributes additional carbon dioxide, once it is broken down. In a stable flock or herd “all the methane belched out in year one, has by year 12, been reverted back to carbon dioxide.” But, while no “new” methane was added to the atmosphere, that methane still contributes to global warming.

CA chief executive officer Chris Parker said while industry worked to mitigate emissions, large portions of the beef sector sequestered more carbon dioxide than it produced.

He pointed to a report published by MLA, Pathways to climate neutrality for the Australian red meat industry, and called for its recommendation for MLA to lead a project to formalise new climate neutrality methods to be adopted.

Dr Parker said current ways of measuring emissions put an unfair burden on producers.

MLA’s CN30 manager Julia Waite said while GWP* factored in the short-lived nature of methane as a gas, CN30 went a step further and was about reducing overall emissions to net zero, using the internationally-recognised GWP100 which contributed to “the international positive acclaim” of the CN30 project.

“The red meat industry remains committed to CN30 through the RMAC Red Meat 2030 plan,” she said, adding it was not MLA’s role to co-ordinate efforts to define terms and measurements.

“Fragmenting terminology and methods of measurement further would compromise integrity and the current hierarchy with which new standards are set and adopted, which flows from intergovernmental bodies like the IPCC through to federal agencies like Australian National Greenhouse Gas Inventory,” she said.