CONCERTED AND PROLONGED R & D INTO GHG EMISSIONS AND SEQUESTRATION

Motivation: (1) Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission and sequestration data of the dairy industry, in fact the whole livestock sector, are inadequate for reliable calculation and, (2) the methodology used in calculation by authorities are limiting and is predicted to be detrimental to future sustainability if not addressed.

GHG emission targets towards 2050: To limit global warming to 1.5^o C, global GHG emissions must be reduced by 43-45% by 2030. South Africa need to reach a fixed GHG range of 350-420 MT CO₂e by 2030, the 2025 estimate being 400-510 MT CO₂e (the range results because of the amount of coal used for electricity generation). Net zero should be obtained in 2050

Relevant UN bodies, functions and GHG reporting: The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the primary international treaty with the objective to stabilize GHG concentrations in the atmosphere to prevent dangerous interference with the climate system. It operates by dealing with mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology and capacity building. To that effect the UNFCCC relies on assessments from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which (a) is responsible for assessing the scientific basis of climate change, the impacts and future risks thereof, and the options for adaptation and mitigation; (b) provide information and directives in this context to governments; (c) provide key input into international climate change negotiations, and (d) is the official body to whom governments report their countries’ decline in GHG emissions towards a particular target. Of importance to agriculture is the Land use, Land-use change and Forestry (LULUCF) GHG sector which falls under the UNFCCC covering carbon emissions and removals from managed lands (e.g. pastures), including forests, cropland, wetlands and settlements. LULUCF is crucial for reaching net-zero emissions, as it covers both emissions and biological sequestration (removals) of carbon.

Current GHG emission reporting: Despite recognition of GHG removal from the atmosphere by the LULUCF and recently of the storage of biogenic carbon through photosynthesis and other means by the Greenhouse Protocol: Land Sector and Removals Standard Version 1.0: Agriculture and CO₂ Removal Technologies, there has been no official reporting system for net emissions (the difference between GHG emissions and sequestration). The reasons for not recognising removals include UN and government reluctance and policies, poor understanding of the fate of methane in the stratosphere, activism against livestock, and importantly from the perspective of this communication, lack of reliable and quantitative research data to confidently proceed with calculation methodologies for net-emissions. 

Consequences: One of the measures of governments to enforce GHG reductions towards net-zero include introduction of taxes. The author already in 2017 in an Agri SA Report¹ warned against this possibility. A carbon tax on agriculture can be ill-afforded when economic sustainability is already vulnerable. In addition, emission reduction alone will not result in the reduction targets being realized, but fortunately agriculture, and the livestock sector in particular, has the potential to maximize removal of GHG and to embed carbon in the vegetation, soil and animal products. To that effect, SA research in the Dairy and the Wool Industry has resulted in respectively the DESTiny^2,3 and a wool production⁴ net-carbon model with considerable potential to enhance progress towards contributing to the objectives of the LULUCF and advancing towards a more fundamental correct and defendable accounting method of report to the IPCC. This should be a target for research in the dairy industry and the livestock sector as a whole.

Shortcomings of current research and information required: The models have been developed with actually measured data and a considerable amount of literature data since much of the information required has not been researched. For the DESTiny model, the current calculations apply only to pasture-based dairy farms and not production systems based on total mixed rations (TMR). The wool model, which was developed from Australian data, requires much more local information, and nothing has as yet been done for the beef, goat, mohair and crop-livestock industries. To deal with it will require a huge effort in fundamental and applied research and training to understand and accumulate applicable data which can be used to populate the models necessary to eventually report to the IPCC. This is comprehensive, and time is limiting towards 2030 and 2050, emphasizing the urgency.

Although a considerable amount of work has been done in South Africa which should be inventoried, research programmes need to be designed to limit enteric methane (animal and rumen genomics, rumen additives), soil carbon and microbial compositions, waste and manure emissions, production system data, ecosystem and biome differences, regenerative agriculture and conventional system differences, in addition to associative influences such as water, drought, disease and adaptability of stock to the diverse biomes of South Africa, as well as developing an altered institutional framework of GHG emission reporting because of net emissions rather than only emissions.