The agricultural conundrum

Two news stories this week – one that made headlines and one that received less attention – highlight the fiendish difficulty of reinventing agriculture to reduce its heavy climate toll.

The first development: New York Attorney General Letitia James, fresh off a $450 million civil judgment against Donald Trump, announced a lawsuit against JBS, the world’s largest meatpacking company, for making misleading statements about its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

James’ lawsuit stated that JBS has used “greenwashing and misleading statements to capitalize on consumers’ increasing desire to make environmentally friendly choices,” with statements such as: “Agriculture can be part of the climate solution. Bacon, chicken wings and steak with net zero emissions. It is possible.”

The cited lawsuit David Gelles’s interview with Gilberto Tomazoni, the CEO of JBS, at our Climate Forward event in September, where he said: “We pledge to be net zero by 2040.”

James argues that the company cannot possibly achieve net zero “because there are no proven agricultural practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions” at the large scale of the company, at least without costly efforts to offset emissions.

JBS is a huge company, but the issues raised in the lawsuit against its US arm are even fundamental: is there a path to net-zero agriculture at all, especially if people are determined to eat large amounts of meat in their diets? to hold?

Climate-smart agriculture

The second development this week speaks to that problem: A new report found that the United States is spending billions of dollars to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from farms. Sounds great, but there’s a problem: a lot of the money may be going to projects that don’t necessarily serve that purpose.

The Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit organization that conducted the study, said the U.S. Department of Agriculture is poised to fund a number of unproven practices. These include installing new irrigation systems, despite the damage they can do to groundwater supplies, and building infrastructure to contain animal waste, which could actually lead to more emissions of methane and other greenhouse gases.

Allan Rodriguez, a USDA spokesperson, said in a statement that the EWG report is “fundamentally flawed” because it “did not take into account the rigorous, science-based methodology used by USDA to determine eligible practices” or the level of specificity used. This is necessary for some practices to receive climate financing.

Anne Schechinger, the author of the EWG report, told me she is still waiting for the USDA to share its sources and data that would justify the climate-smart designation.

Even putting that particular dispute aside, one thing is clear: there is a huge knowledge gap in our efforts to transform agriculture. Measuring agricultural emissions is much more complex monitoring of power stations and exhaust pipes. That makes it difficult for any government to measure how well such techniques work – and whether in some cases they even do more harm than good.

“The pace at which these strategies are being implemented is significantly outpacing the rate at which the science, the knowledge needed to understand their effectiveness, is being generated,” said Kim Novick, an environmental scientist at Indiana University who studies carbon in agricultural systems. “Until we can close that gap, it’s really going to be a challenge to put the cart before the horse.”

Closing the knowledge gap

Agriculture is responsible for about a third of the world’s CO2 emissions, and a tenth of America’s. But we still know shockingly little about how to reduce the toll on the climate and fragile ecosystems.

For this newsletter I spoke with a number of experts. While some of them were generally supportive of investing in some climate-friendly practices, they told me that even practices widely considered good for the climate still have unclear benefits.

Take cover crops, one of the most accepted climate-friendly agricultural practices. These are legumes and other species planted after the harvest of cash crops, such as corn, to help nourish soil and improve water quality.

Most people agree that implementing cover crops on a large scale can help reduce emissions. But those conclusions are based on a relatively small amount of data, Novick told me.

The Inflation Reduction Act and other funding streams spend hundreds of millions of dollars on improving data and models. That, the USDA spokesperson said, will “ensure that future resources are focused on the most effective practices.”

Doria Gordon, a senior director at the Environmental Defense Fund, told me she is excited about “the unprecedented level of funding” that is making the agriculture sector more sustainable and that many practices the USDA supports should have climate benefits if implemented at scale. .

Still, she would like the agency to continue its efforts to further collect data. There is also “an equally unprecedented opportunity” to close the knowledge gap, she said. “This is a truly unique opportunity to advance our understanding of these emerging solutions.”

An American investigation into Chinese cars

The Biden administration said Thursday it was launching an investigation into whether internet-connected Chinese cars could pose a threat to national security. It could be the first step toward blocking sales of Chinese cars and trucks — including a coming wave of cheap electric vehicles.

Concerns about security threats from China are great. Relations between the two countries remain problematic and US lawmakers are already moving to block other popular Chinese imports, including TikTok.

But it’s impossible to understand the opening of the investigation without also thinking about it China’s dominance in climate-friendly technologies, including solar panels and electric vehicles.

As Robinson Meyer wrote in the Times Opinion section earlier this week, American automakers are facing an onslaught of low-priced Chinese electric vehicles. “BYD and other Chinese automakers such as Geely, owner of the Volvo Cars and Polestar brands, are very good at making cars,” he wrote. “They have leveraged China’s dominance in the battery industry and automated production lines to create a juggernaut.”

China’s BYD surpassed Tesla last year to become the world’s largest electric car maker, this month unveiling a plug-in hybrid costing just $11,000. Ford, General Motors and Stellantis – the company behind Dodge, Chrysler and Jeep – simply cannot compete with that.

The Biden administration has shown its eagerness to boost America’s clean energy manufacturing industry. The country has tried to crack down on cheap Chinese solar panels that they say are evading tariffs. And it has poured trillions of dollars into domestic factories and infrastructure.

Opening an investigation, which could lead to tariffs or import bans, could be seen as a matter of national security. But even Scott Paul, the president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a pro-labor group, was quick to acknowledge that the move was also about economic competition.

“We agree that the data security of connected vehicles is an issue of critical national security, especially when manufactured by companies in China,” he said in a statement. “We also believe that more must be done to stop the threat of Chinese cars to our national and economic security. That’s why we’ve called for a wide range of measures, including higher rates and limiting EV tax credits.” — David Gelles