Antinuclear

Former Liberal leader and treasury economist John Hewson has delivered a scathing rebuke of the Federal Government’s climate change policy during an address to farmers and industry leaders.

“We don’t have a sense of urgency to achieve these emission [reduction] targets,” he told the Australian Farm Institute Roundtable in Canberra.

“The comments made by the Prime Minister at the UN, that we are going to meet our emissions targets, was a gross misrepresentation and was staggering for someone in his position.”

Dr Hewson, who is now the chair of the Business Council for Sustainable Development, said he would like to see regenerative agriculture form part of the solution.

“Regenerative agriculture can offset a very significant portion of our future emissions, and I’m staggered that is not being recognised by the National Party,” he said.

“It would have a lot of benefits for regional Australia; a farmer could earn carbon credits or a stream of income for sequestering carbon on their farm.”

Is agriculture prepared to be part of the solution?

Large multinational food companies are moving to adopt new targets to reduce emissions in line with the Paris Agreement on climate change.

The Sustainable Food Policy Alliance, which represents companies like Nestle, Unilever, Mars and Danone, has backed calls for companies to use their political influence to push governments to implement a science-based policy agenda.

Some academics believe this marks a shift in the global effort to combat climate change, when companies are moving faster than governments to reduce emissions.

Richard Eckard, a professor of agricultural sciences at the University of Melbourne, said government policy might be less influential than market forces.

“In the past six months, I’ve been back and relooked at all these companies’ sustainability statements and noticed that they’ve all switched to absolute emission reduction targets in line with the Paris Agreement,” he said.

“Some of them have interim steps to get there, but all of them are aiming for carbon-neutral food production by 2050.”…… https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2019-10-19/hewson-slams-coalition-on-climate-change-as-business-takes-lead/11617292