Emissions cuts from farming and land use in the UK are lagging or even reversing, new analysis of government data by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) shows, FarmingUK reports on July 16.
Progress is lagging behind other sectors to such an extent that agriculture is likely to become the biggest emitter by the mid-2030s, the ECIU said. The body, which is a non-profit organisation that analyses climate change, warned in a new report that progress is “significantly behind” for the industry.
Although the pace of progress in creating forests in the country improved last year, to 4,550 hectares per year, it is still far below the target of 7,500 hectares of new forests planted by 2025.
And the share of farmers adopting low-carbon farming practices, such as energy efficiency and better slurry management, fell to 48% from 66% in 2020. The target for 2025 is 70% and for 2037 85%.
As well as falling behind on forest creation and rolling back low-carbon agriculture, efforts to restore Britain’s peatlands are also woefully inadequate and behind schedule.
Tom Lancaster, agricultural analyst at ECIU, said the next five years “decisive or turning point” on the contribution of agriculture and land use to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050: “It is a tragic irony that UK farmers’ yields, incomes and food self-sufficiency are falling due to a winter made extremely wet by climate change, while emissions from the sector itself have remained high for at least the past decade.”.
He called for a new government “act quickly to propose policies that can make up for lost time”.
Source: Rossa Primavera
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