The annual funding round for the Greenhouse Gas Inventory Research (GHGIR) fund is now open, with $2.9 million of funding available for new GHGIR projects in the 2024/25 financial year.

"The GHGIR focuses on improving our knowledge of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions, to ensure we have the best possible data to help manage New Zealand’s emissions and inform policy decisions," says Stephanie Preston, MPI’s director of Programmes and Planning, Policy and Trade.

"This year we’re looking for very specific research proposals in 10 priority areas, ranging from improving liveweight estimation of sheep and beef to exploring remote sensing methods of collecting data, such as using satellite data to measure feed type and quality.

"The outcomes will inform MPI’s reporting to the New Zealand Greenhouse Gas Inventory and the United Nations under the Paris Climate Agreement."

Applications close on 30 October 2024, with successful proposals expected to be announced by the end of February 2025.

Background information:

The annual Greenhouse Gas Inventory reports on human-induced emissions and removals of greenhouse gases for energy, industrial processes, agriculture, land use, land-use change and forestry, and waste.

The Inventory is produced by government agencies, with MPI being responsible for producing the chapter on agricultural emissions (the Agriculture Greenhouse Gas Inventory). The report is submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change secretariat each year.

The 10 priorities for this year’s funding round are:

• non-forest land-use emissions model
• review and improve energy equations and intake
• review QA/QC of inventory model code
• review liming emissions
• measure values relevant to the inventory using remote sensing techniques 
• improving the modelling of dairy beef cattle 
• improve liveweight estimation of sheep and beef
• seasonal dairy supplementary feed data intake 
• new afforestation and deforestation intentions survey 
• improved activity data and parameters for deer.

The priorities paper for 2024 is on MPI’s Applying for Greenhouse Gas Inventory Research funding web page.

Research funded via GHGIR has led to improvements in the accuracy of estimated emissions from agriculture and forestry including: 

• new data to reflect the use of non-pasture feed for dairy cattle, beef cattle and sheep
• New Zealand-specific nitrous oxide emission factors from animal excreta split by stock type and hill slope.

Previous examples of projects recently funded by the Greenhouse Gas Inventory Research fund can be found here.

Reports from completed GHGIR funded research can be found here.