NIWA called upon to correct major error
Released 22 Dec 2009
Federated Farmers is calling on NIWA's Keith Lassey to retract the comments he made on TV3 News this evening, where he claimed livestock account for a quarter of all global greenhouse gas emissions.
"According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the United Nations, agriculture and food production account for 14 percent of the world's emissions," says Don Nicolson, President of Federated Farmers.
"It's incredibly disappointing to see a NIWA spokesperson, Keith Lassey, massively inflate this figure by a further 11 percent and then attribute it all to livestock.
"Federated Farmers calls upon NIWA to retract these damaging comments immediately. It's difficult enough to have a rational debate without NIWA making up figures.
"If it's a slip of the tongue then a simple correction to all media would satisfy us. For NIWA's credibility, I do think they need to get onto this fairly quickly.
"So instead of putting up cows each time the word methane is mentioned, it should be images of 6.7 billion human beings who absolutely depend on the 14 percent of agricultural emissions to survive.
"Let's face it, no emissions, no economy and actually, no life either," Mr Nicolson concluded.
For further comment please contact:
Don Nicolson, Federated Farmers President, 027 226 6331, 03 216 7405
For the United Nations FAO release please click here
