Australian red meat industry not going to meet 2030 carbon neutral target

Meat and Livestock Australia managing director Jason Strong said recent modelling published by MLA showed under current assumptions combining all mitigation options would reduce net emissions to 17.3mt CO2e - falling shy of carbon neutrality in 2030.

"While this is substantial, achieving CN30 will require actions exceeding those modelled in this study over the next seven years," he said.

"The red meat industry is absolutely on track to achieve its goal as long as there is ongoing investment partnerships between the industry, government, and the private sector.

"Since 2017, MLA has co-invested $140 million in CN30 with plans to invest a further $150 million before the decade is out. MLA understands the challenges of CN30 and the need to rapidly bring new technologies to market."

In 2017, MLA set out to see that Australian beef, lamb and goat production, including lot feeding and meat processing, would make no net release of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions into the atmosphere.

MLA said there were clear market signals in high value international markets that emissions from livestock production were an issue for consumers.

University of Melbourne Professor and agricultural carbon expert Richard Eckard agrees with MLA's modelling.

"It's pretty clear they're not going to get there," Prof Eckard said.

"In order for them to actually go any further, they have to come up with technologies to dramatically reduce methane from cattle.

"Right now, we can do that in the confinement industries, because we can feed them on stuff [like seaweed].

"More than half the cattle are not on supplementary feed and are not given any form of supplementation on a daily basis, so it does leave us with a fairly big problem, particularly for the rangeland systems [where there is little human interaction]."

Prof Eckhard said it was a very bold, brave target which galvanised a lot of research action on the problem, which was a "fantastic" outcome.

"We set a stringent target, we didn't get there, but hey, we're still on the trajectory and we've got [millions of dollars] worth of research going on as a result," he said.

MLA's boss said rather than cause for doubt, their commitment to transparent progress modelling was "highly motivating" by quantifying the capability and investment gap to close over the decade for the industry to achieve its target.

"Think of it like the Olympics and the industry is striving for a gold medal. That's what the CN30 target is about," Mr Strong said.

"Our focus is single-mindedly on that gold medal. If we come away with a silver or bronze, the achievements and the progress we've made are going to be no less formidable."

MLA says the industry has reduced emissions by 65 percent since the baseline year of 2005 and accounted for just 10.3 per cent of national emissions in 2020.