Is it just hot air? Methane meets politics in NZ's climate policy

Debate about reducing methane emissions has been stunted by a fear of looking like we’re pandering to farmers. (Image: Getty)

Adrian Macey and Dave Frame

Thu, 29 Sep 2022

In the third in this five-part analysis of New Zealand’s climate-change policy, former climate change negotiator Adrian Macey and climate scientist Dave Frame look at how we measure methane emissions from livestock, and how our international reputation appears to have affected policy decisions.A fundamental issue for NZ is the fact that the 30-year-old metric chosen by the United Nations to measure the different greenhouse gases (known as GWP100) is inaccurate for short-lived gases.It greatly overstates the warming caused by NZ’s me...

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