Henry Pike (Bowman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have read Minister Bowen's media release of 23 October, where he claims the Global Methane Pledge is a voluntary commitment that promotes an aspirational target of reducing global methane emissions across all sectors by at least 30 per cent below 2020 levels by 2030. That all sounds fairly benign. If you listen to the previous speaker's contribution, certainly it all sounds very benign and very friendly. We will continue to decide how we manage and regulate methane-intensive sectors such as energy waste disposal in agriculture, principally livestock, but also crops such as rice.

The devil is always in the detail and, even in the minister's own media release, there is significant cause for concern, where the aspiration clearly aims for reductions of at least 30 per cent and it makes mention that it is across all sectors by 2030. So even the minister concedes that his pledge is not just about the capture of waste methane in energy and waste sectors but that the government will ruthlessly target all sectors in a ham-fisted search for errant methane molecules. Top of the minister's all-sector hit list will be agriculture. Agriculture was our first industry and, while it accounts for 48 per cent of Australia's human-related methane emissions, it is worth noting that it is worth $70 billion to our national economy.

Looking a little closer, if it becomes apparent that Labor's principle target within the agricultural sector is the livestock industry, which alone contributes over $1.6 billion to our economy. Along with Labor's prime target, mining supports thousands of communities.

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