The NFU has restated its views on what it hopes the Government’s Committee on Climate Change will cover in its report which is due to be published today.
The committee is due to publish a detailed report today which will recommend interim greenhouse gas reduction targets up to 2022 and the likely impact for different industry sectors towards 2050. On the same day the UN climate change conference will begin in Poznan, Poland.
Jonathan Scurlock, the NFU’s chief adviser on renewable energy and climate change, said: "We are hopeful that the committee will have recognised farming emissions as being fundamentally different from other parts of the economy. It is already apparent that some sectors, for example international aviation and shipping, are unlikely to be reduced as dramatically as others such as electricity generation.
"With this in mind we will, through the Climate Change Task Force, continue to inform and lobby the Government and its advisers about the scientific uncertainties surrounding non-CO2 greenhouse gases and the need for directed incentives to enable farmers, growers and land managers to play their part in reducing the overall greenhouse gas balance within the agricultural and horticultural sector.
"We have already 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
"Public and media confusion between the impacts of food consumption and food production is also a concern, and may tend to favour imports over domestic production. This would simply result in UK greenhouse gas emissions being exported.
"However, 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. 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. Scientific evidence suggests that the same level of cuts in all greenhouse gases is simply not achievable."