carbon removal in time of climate crisis

Net zero emissions by 2050 is the goal of most developed countries, including New Zealand, in the quest to stabilise temperature increase at 1.5C above pre-industrial level. This target can only be achieved by taking urgent and scalable action on emission reductions and emission removals.

Since 1850, atmospheric C02 has increased to 415ppm (parts per million), the highest level for millions of years. Today, these levels are very close to 440ppm, the long-term benchmark level for 1.5C warming stabilisation.

If emissions continue to rise at current rates, 440ppm will be breached in just 10 years. This would incur an inevitable C02 overshoot threating climate stability on which our societies rely.

Massive emission removals will be required to bring us back to the 1.5C target.

effective climate action must be real

In the realm of effective climate action, nothing is useful unless it is real.

It is essential that prioritised actions are: scalable, rapid, cost-effective, environmentally safe and deliver significant environmental co-benefits.

The essential role of long lived forests

Forests play an essential role in the fight against rising emissions due to their capacity to remove and store carbon. Carbon storage in forests is key and must be permanent and therefore not at risk of being emitted back to the atmosphere, which occurs when forests are either logged, destroyed by fire, storm events or disease.

Many forest types have hugely different capacities for removal and long-term CO2 storage. As an example, forests could be seen as pumps that suck CO2 from the air, store it in their living and dead biomass, both above and below ground, and in soil organic matter.

Some forest pumps are more efficient than others. As C02 removals are incredibly urgent, it is correspondingly important that forests utilised have very high sequestration rates and secure carbon storage potential.  

Different tree species can have dramatically different sequestration rates, determined by their DNA, and being located in favourable environmental and climate conditions. There are many different sequestration rates for different tree species in New Zealand, anywhere from an average of 3 to 30 tonnes C02 per hectare per year. The introduced species usually store more carbon faster and the native species store less carbon in the short term.

We support carbon forestry within farms, not instead of them

This means that we stand for the integration of carbon forests within the landscape on marginal and least-valuable land. Carbon forests can provide an additional income stream to landowners and thereby improve the environmental and economic sustainability of the core business.

By establishing 12.5% of New Zealand’s 10 million hectares of agricultural land over the next decade (2020-2030), the entirety of the livestock farming sectors’ emissions could be offset for the next 50 years.