New Zealand is a small, globalized economy built on the land sector. Our farming systems are mostly based on pastoral agriculture. In any given year, our land sector produces about 70% of the value of New Zealand’s merchandise exports. As a consequence, there must be few other countries where milk prices are headline news, watched closely by currency traders, bank economists, and dairy farmers alike.

With agriculture so predominant in our economy, land-sector emissions account for about half of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Most of that is methane from rumen digestion, with nitrous oxide from animal excretion and fertilizer making up the rest. Agricultural production is linked to pasture growth, stock numbers and climatic conditions – processes which depend on the fundamental biochemistry of animal nutrition and soil microbiology. In the absence of technology, reducing these “biological” emissions is difficult without cutting production, which would have significant impacts on our economy.

It would be irresponsible from a climate change perspective to ignore what amounts to about 15% of global emissions, but in a world that needs more food for a growing population, climate change policies that constrain food production are irrational, and politically unsustainable.

We need to find ways to grow more food without growing emissions. Part of the answer is to reduce the emissions intensity of production – which we are doing, with year-on-year improvements. To go further, a concerted and collaborative international effort is needed – one that focuses not just on new research, but on making sure the results are shared with farmers and food producers in developed and developing countries alike.

To meet the challenge, in 2010 we initiated a Global Research Alliance (GRA) of 46 developed and developing countries. Collaborative research under the GRA banner is bearing fruit. In New Zealand, we’re seeing promising results in trials showing we can breed low-methane sheep and cattle. Other research shows some compounds could reduce methane production in sheep by up to 90%. Of course, there are significant challenges to overcome before these technologies can be commercialized. But, given that methane from livestock accounts for about 5% of global GHG emissions, these are very promising results indeed.

Our history of innovation in agriculture is helping in other ways.

We phased out agricultural subsidies in the 1980s, and our farming sector never looked back. Now, we’re applying what we learned by leading a coalition of governments calling for the elimination of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. The logic is undeniable: we can’t on the one hand call for a price on carbon, and on the other pay subsidies to produce and consume fossil fuels. Subsidy phase-out would not only deliver health benefits, but would also cut global emissions by as much as 12%.

Fossil fuel subsidy reform is the missing piece of the climate change puzzle.

These subsidies lock us into a high-carbon energy world. Removing subsidies to fossil fuels is one of the keys to opening the door on a low-carbon future. By keeping prices to consumers artificially low, these subsidies encourage wasteful consumption, disadvantage renewable energy and drain scarce public resources that could be better spent on other sustainable development goals.

We, along with Costa Rica, Denmark, Ethiopia, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland – a group of countries known as the Friends of Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform – will deliver a well-supported Communiqué promoting this on Leaders’ Day at COP 21 in Paris. The Communiqué is a political statement that underlines the importance of fossil fuel subsidy reform as a key climate change mitigation policy with clear economic, social and environmental benefits.

By launching this Communiqué, its supporters are calling on the international community to increase efforts to phase out subsidies to fossil fuels in light of the effort to reach a new global climate change agreement in Paris in just a few weeks’ time.

The Friends of Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform are proud to support the Communiqué, and we invite other governments and organizations to join the growing number of signatories to this statement on environmental, economic and social grounds.

New Zealand is committed to helping secure an effective and ambitious agreement at COP 21 – one with the widest possible participation, and where we all take action on the same legal basis. We show our support by playing to our strengths: on land sector issues, in looking for a level playing field for energy, and in driving efforts to ensure international carbon markets operate efficiently and with environmental integrity.