 Reitārb, nesaskatrana. Fa melaidau aile airea i, i beti g한테a nursegoa puntura di—zae cairiau. Adu kaitoan na ngayai i vidi angutiai o pasalag. Padaicono, maidaustrana piaata pili, ganasada paste, maidaustrana aile. Madaustrana, neraka i kota pili, kaitoan aila i ganda, shutting down to the indigenous culture. The Irish cultural diaspora is evident in New Zealand. I think I'm about the only New Zevander I know that can't claim to have Irish heritage. It's to my eternal regret that it is the case. We're similar in other important ways to, and that's, as Tom has hinted, why I am interested to talk to you this morning. We've got small globalised economies that are more outward focused than some of our major trading partners. Our populations are growing and growing in New Zealand's case quite significantly due to migration, but outside our cities the population density is pretty low. And like Ireland, New Zealand is built essentially on the land sector. And our farming systems are again very similar, mostly based on pastoral agriculture. That makes a huge contribution to our economy and I'd be willing to bet that there are a few other countries where the price of dairy or milk prices would be headline news, watched closely not just by the farming sector but also by currency traders. In any given year New Zealand's land sector produces about 70% of the value of our merchandise exports, so we are far from being a normal industrialised economy. But because of that, like Ireland, the land sector emissions account for a very significant share of our greenhouse gases and that's why I'm here this morning. So for us about half of our emissions come from agriculture. Majority of that being methane from rumen digestion with nitrous oxide from animal excretion and fertiliser making up the bulk of the rest. As we know, emissions are closely linked to agricultural production, which is in turn linked to pastoral growth, stock numbers and climatic conditions. We produce, therefore, we emit, like a paraphrata stick out. In Ireland's case, as I understand it, about a third of emissions are from agriculture and your emissions here have similar characteristics to our own. So we face the same sort of challenges in mitigating emissions from very complex biological systems. Well, as an agricultural exporting nation, we give a huge amount of attention to how the land sector is dealt with in climate change negotiations. It presents us with plenty of challenges, but we also think there are some opportunities, always opportunities, I think, if people are driven to respond to change, it's a driver for innovation and diversification. But for both of us as developed countries, we're kind of outliers. We're very different from most of the rest of the developing countries within the climate change context. For most countries, whether bulk of emissions are CO2 from burning fossil fuels, tackling climate change is about getting to grips with energy use. Whether that's moving from coal to renewables or encouraging greater energy efficiency, it's energy that holds the key. But things are pretty different for agriculture. There's no silver bullet. I'm not going to suggest that tackling energy emissions is easy. Of course, it's got its own challenges as well. But at the very least, the technology is there. There are a number of different options for clean energy. Costs are coming down and in many parts of the world, including in New Zealand, they're now at a par with fossil fuel power generation. And there are a number of viable options for governments and business to make as sort of shifting from brown to green investments. So in our view, we need to recognise that agriculture is different when it comes to responding to climate change. And first and foremost, as we all know, emissions and global food production are increasing. And we're going to need to keep increasing food production with population growth on the planet forecast to increase to 9 billion people by 2050. So we'll need to increase production by as much as 60% by then to feed that growing population. Increase in food production, but we'll have to do that in ways that focus on improvements in yield and efficiency. We're also going to have to decouple growth in production from growth in emissions and from growth in agricultural land use. I'm probably again speaking to the converted, but agricultural emissions arise from complex biological systems. And it's really a challenging proposition to change the biology of our soils and livestock. We've invested an enormous amount of money in research and continue to do so. And some of that early research has had very promising results, whether that's vaccines, genetic breeding and a couple of other innovations that we have tried. But it's also highlighted some important challenges. New technologies we know can face significant regulatory and consumer hurdles. And certainly our experience in the last year has reminded us just how incredibly sensitive consumers are when it comes to anything to do with food. So there are significant issues that need to be dealt with there. Many of the promising technologies are still experimental, not proven in the field, and so far at least they're expensive at scale. So in the meantime, we think there are opportunities to reduce emissions through efficiency. The FAO recently estimated that we could get a 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions globally if livestock producers in any given system adopted practices and technologies employed by the most efficient 10% of producers. So that's a significant improvement in greenhouse gas emissions from efficiency gains alone. Domestically New Zealand's found that relationship definitely holds true within our own farm systems and I think it's the same with Ireland here. We would add that in our experience these emissions-efficient farmers are also the most productive and profitable. So there is definitely a double win associated with this. This ability to reduce emissions through efficiency gains is an important opportunity and one that risks though being a bit lost in the wider challenges that the sector faces. As we see it, there are two focuses for the agriculture sector. First, scaling up research and new technologies to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and improve yields in the longer term. So that's really finding the new solutions for the longer term while at the same time having a short-term focus on improving agricultural productivity and emissions efficiency and there is plenty of room for manoeuvre there. We've observed that agriculture really isn't helped by international climate change agreements that encourage us to treat agricultural emissions in the same way as those from industry and energy sectors. If we look at the UNFCCC, beyond reporting and accounting rules, the Convention is just silent on how we should treat agriculture. The Kyoto Protocol also combines emissions from all sources, including from agriculture, and then it requires countries to take an economy-wide commitment relative to those total emissions. Of course countries have flexibility to be able to make their own choices on how to achieve the target and on the whole developed countries absorb their emissions from agriculture into their economy-wide target. It's easy if, as for most, agriculture accounts for less than 10% of your total emissions. And there you can get some traction trading off action in one sector over inaction in another and still manage to secure absolute reductions in your economy-wide emissions. It's more problematic if a sector with limited abatement options dominates your emissions. If you've got a segment, you've got fewer tools in your toolbox. I guess I always think of it like a basket of eggs. If you've got a set of hen's eggs in your basket, you've got some options to play with. If you've got a pretty great ostrich egg in the middle of your basket and a couple of other ones around it, you've got fewer things at your disposal. So what's New Zealand done? We've met our first commitment period obligations. We did that by introducing as our principal policy tool in emissions trading scheme and plugging that into the global carbon market. The New Zealand ETS is designed to cover all sectors and all gases. It's being implemented in stages. So the first to come in was forestry. In 2008, industrial processes, stationary energy and waste joined the scheme about two years later. So it now covers about half of all of our emissions. We found that the scheme worked well in some areas, but not so well. We'd be the first to admit in others. Initially, it very strongly encouraged new forest planting. I think that might be of interest to Ireland, given the afforestation programmes that you have here. It also helped to encourage new investment in grid-scale renewable energy, especially electricity generation. But as you will also be aware, being part of the EU ETS, prices have declined steeply. So that price signal is not delivering so much, meaning the scheme hasn't made a dent on our transport emissions that account for 20% of our total emissions. And it's less of an encouragement to forestry than it was at the start. So far, it hasn't included agriculture directly. And there were some challenges to that. One of those was to... In order to ensure that you got a price signal to farmers, we were going to have to model emissions at the farm level, but with more than 60,000 farmers, the administrative costs of doing that have not proved viable. The other consideration that Government took into account was the lack of viable mitigation options. And certainly there were quite considerable representations from the farming sector on the basis of carbon leakage and competitive concerns that imposing a price on them when no such constraints or comparable measures were in place anywhere else in the world was not tenable and would put them in a subjective disadvantage. Now, without commercially viable solutions, it seems to our farming sector and indeed to us that the only way to reduce emissions from agriculture is to reduce production. Now, that would obviously have severe impacts on our economy. Yes, reducing agricultural production in New Zealand would reduce our national emissions, but on a global level we're well aware that agricultural demand would remain the same and would be filled from elsewhere and in all probability through less emissions-efficient sources. And I think that's a consideration that Ireland has as well. Certainly, I think we're both amongst the most emissions-efficient producers in the world. And the other, I guess, point is that if demand isn't met, then global food prices start to rise and there are other security issues that come into play. So for the moment, agriculture is covered in our ETS through reporting obligations only without having the accompanying surrender obligations. And even at that stage it's pretty important to have reporting obligations because it does at least sensitise the sector to their emissions and can help to drive some innovation. Outside the UNFCCC process because although that's important to us, we haven't put all our ostrich or other eggs in that particular basket where we're active in other ways. We took the initiative to launch the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases in December 1999. We've been very pleased that Ireland has been an active founding member since then. The Alliance now has 42 member countries and through pooling research effort the aim is to find game-changing solutions. But also at a much simpler and more practical level use information sharing on best practices so that you get constant, simple improvements through better productivity. We also joined the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, another co-operative initiative that Ireland is participating in and we see that's a good complement to the GRA. It takes R&D onto an implementation phase and we've been closely involved on a CCAC project on manure management, now working with partners on the development of a project on enteric fermentation. That's a really good partnership to extend out the GRA research. We were really interested in and encouraged by the launch of the new Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture at the climate summit Tom referred to last month. And that's really important, we think with the Alliance looking to leverage a triple win for food security, climate change, adaptation and greenhouse gas mitigation for improving productivity, efficiency and resilience. Just quickly, domestically you're probably well aware that we went through big changes in the 1970s removing all forms of agricultural subsidy. So our farmers have a market-led focus on productivity and efficiency improvements and they've significantly reduced the emissions intensity of our production. To help that we established an agricultural greenhouse gas research centre and that leads the way in mitigation research. If you wanted to look at its first annual report check out the link. There's some really interesting results from its first couple of years of activity. The other thing that we've done is set up the primary growth partnership. It's a collaborative effort between industry and government, sort of 50-50 funding to develop and support research projects that enhance primary sector sustainability long-term economic growth. A very successful partnership. Through those sorts of things on an aggregate basis although our agricultural emissions have increased 12% since 1990 productivity gains means that our emissions per unit of production have actually decreased by around 30% since 1990 and they do keep reducing. So we're actively looking at ways to continue an annual improvement in emissions intensity. We've also got a growing focus on water quality driven particularly by a big shift towards dairy production in the New Zealand agricultural scene. That's going to be another driver of on-farm innovation and resource use efficiency. Most of the focus is on better management of nutrient and effluent flows to improve water quality. But doing those things will also have important climate change benefits through more efficient use of effluent and fertilizer and improved pasture management. So we're really looking to leverage the synergies that are there. Just to go back now to finish with the international negotiations. I've talked about all the things we have done. One of the things New Zealand hasn't done is joined the Kyoto Protocol's second commitment period. It's because we're firmly of the view that we need to transition away from a Kyoto Protocol world view. We really think that the divide between developed and developing countries is completely outdated. We must move to an ambitious new agreement that is genuinely applicable to all countries and where national circumstances can be better accounted for. We really don't think that the Kyoto Protocol was written for countries like ours in mind. In this new world, New Zealand and Ireland with our agriculture heavy emissions profiles, we're no longer the outliers. There's a number of developing countries with similar emissions profiles to ours. For many, their share of agricultural emissions is even higher. Brazil has a remarkably similar profile to New Zealand. We're both about 50-50 agricultural emissions. For Uruguay, the percentage is somewhat over 80%. The old-style economy-wide approach makes it politically and technically infeasible for many developing countries to participate in a way that can easily include their agriculture sectors. We think we should be aiming for an agreement that does cover all sectors and all gases. If nearly 25% and 30% of global emissions from agriculture, forestry and other land use, if they're left out of the equation entirely, then we can in no way claim that we are dealing with a global problem. But to do so, we need to recognise the multiple objectives in the land sector and that different countries are going to have different priorities for how agriculture contributes to their climate change response. The Paris Agreement, we think, has to reflect this and demonstrate that the challenges for agriculture are understood. One way of doing this would be to agree principles for approaches in the land sector and how these might be reflected in nationally determined contributions. We've developed some thinking about what some principles might look like. I think what the agreement has to recognise is that we don't yet have all the answers. So it needs to create the right policy environment and actively encourage and intensify investment in research and development. That's a key thing that this agreement must do. We also talked about the room for global advances through improved efficiency and on-farm management practices. So the new agreement should actively encourage and enable countries to take targets that fit the interests that are around recognising the emissions benefits that flow from improved efficiency and on-farm management practices. The other thing is we need to start thinking differently about agricultural greenhouse gases. We were really interested in the fifth assessment report that the IPCC published earlier this year. I think the last bit is about you to come out. So the science is telling us that with agriculture we have a little bit of time up our sleeves. The IPCC has confirmed that CO2 from fossil fuels is the most urgent climate change issue. The AR5, the fifth assessment report, confirmed that under most of their modelling scenarios we can allow non-CO2 emissions from gases like methane to remain at their current levels as late as 2050 and still have a reasonable chance of meeting our two-degree target. So we won't miss that goal if under the new agreement and certainly to begin with we treat agriculture a little differently. So for the short term just to reiterate is to manage and minimise biological emissions by focusing on efficiency gains without compromising our ability to feed a growing global population and in the longer term we need innovative solutions. We think there's a good landing zone for Paris here that could see agriculture addressed in a really practical and effective way in the 2015 agreement. In fact it's probably overripe to have these conversations but we're obviously going to have to advance other aspects of the negotiations. One thing that underpins every aspect of the negotiation is how you deal with the differentiation between developed and developing countries and in the agricultural space just as much as with anything else and perhaps even more so trying to find and navigate a way through this differentiation problem is going to be absolutely key. So looking ahead to next year we think that an agreement in Paris is certainly doable but it is going to be a big challenge. You know I've been saying for the last year or maybe more that the landing zone for Paris is quite clear. You can see pretty much where the agreement needs to come out and what would deliver a genuinely effective climate agreement that would have a high level of participation and would enable ambition to be maximised but it's one thing to see a landing zone it's another thing to successfully bring the agreement to a conclusion. And for those there are a couple in this room who sit closely to the negotiations there is a huge disjunct between what's happening before the negotiations and what happens in informal meeting rooms where the conversation can be much, much more constructive and where you can see where it's possible so we're going to have, it would seem in this new agreement, a hybrid between what's been grouped top down and bottom up we'll have a hybrid then of overarching rules or parameters through a legally binding agreement and a bottom up component of nationally determined commitments where we see these two things meeting is that and we've called this zone bounded flexibility because the agreement part of it implies rules, legally binding the nationally determined part of it implies lots of flexibility do whatever you can, just get it on the table so we need to define the area where those two things intersect the parameters or the boundaries that you put around the flexibility, the opt-outs the kind of specific circumstances that individual countries might face as an alternative to negotiating an agreement that just drops down to the lowest common denominator so we think that finding this landing zone is going to be the best way to maximise participation and ambition and it is what is sitting behind our thinking on the land sector we've been really interested and I think the climate summit helped to see that political momentum is steadily building for these negotiations there's no doubt that it is being strongly driven by this and China and of course the European Union is showing leadership with the more transparent process that with 28 member states it's always necessary to go through to work out what it is that can be put on the table by way of nationally determined contributions so with President Obama making it clear that this is a legacy issue for his administration with intensive discussions with China and China being driven for domestic reasons by their severe and urgent need to deal with air pollution problems we think that there is a golden political opportunity here that needs to be seized and it's time for those of us with an interest in agriculture to see how we can make it work both in and alongside the UNFCCC we think we need some high level understandings about agriculture we need to make sure that the co-operative initiatives that sit alongside the UNFCCC help it help the UNFCCC to come to a solution or cut across it and we also need countries to be ready to take on ambitious but achievable targets including their land sector and by achievable I mean both politically as well as technically feasible so I'm going to stop there to leave I hope a little bit of time for questions happy to talk about anything climate change related thank you very much