Last month, Beef + Lamb New Zealand’s director UK & EU Macaulay Jones attended COP30 in Belém, Brazil, as part of the World Farmers’ Organisation delegation.
At COP30, countries agreed on a set of indicators to measure progress towards global climate adaption goals, called the Belém Adaptation Indicators.
These indicators focus on a range of voluntary measures and practical outcomes such as climate-resilient farming practices, food security, and biodiversity - ensuring climate policies strengthen communities and food systems rather than weaken them.
“These indicators are designed to help countries ask the tough question: are our climate mitigation policies actually helping communities become more resilient or making them more vulnerable to climate change?” says Jones.
The Government’s move to limit forestry offsets by restricting whole farm conversions that can be entered into the ETS is welcomed.
However, our forestry offsetting regime - and its impact on climate adaptation - continues to be an outlier and out of step with these Belém conversations as it will still allow some farms to be converted into forestry for carbon credits, he says.
“Recent European research shows EU forest carbon absorption is already declining due to climate impacts and poor adaptation policies, highlighting the risks of leaning too heavily on forestry to meet our climate goals.
“We’re not against forestry, but we support strategic productive land-use, not the blanket planting of whole farms into single-species carbon sinks.”
The Belém conversations around adaptation indicators underscores the importance of getting both climate adaptation and mitigation policies right to avoid unintended consequences.
“The move to more science-based biogenic methane targets based on the principle of ‘no additional warming’ shows we can act on the latest science and evidence.
“The updated methane targets will also ease the pressure to rely on unsustainable blanket forestry offsets to meet unscientific climate goals.”
New Zealand remains a global leader as one of the few UNFCCC parties with clear mitigation ambitions for agriculture, including quantified, timebound agricultural methane reduction targets. Unlike many others, we also have concrete plans to achieve these targets and are making good progress.
The recent Global Methane Status Report 2025, released during COP30, endorsed New Zealand’s domestic split-gas approach with recommendations urging all countries to adopt specificity for biogenic methane in their Nationally Determined Contributions and Methane Action Plans.
This aligns with B+LNZ’s call, alongside 39 other agricultural organisations across 16 countries, for a split-gas approach for emissions reporting. Strong backing from developing countries demonstrates that the issue is one that unites farmers across the world.
“Whilst I was in Belém, agricultural organisations from Italy, Uganda, Bulgaria, and Argentina signed onto the joint statement on this matter with many more interested,” says Jones.
“Given New Zealand’s leadership in this area and unique emissions profile, there continues be interest in our approach. The New Zealand Government needs to do a better job of telling this story, highlighting the latest science, and encouraging others to follow our lead. We have a good story to tell and in Belém other countries were eager to hear it about.”