The debate is on to cut New Zealand’s on-farm emissions, but the climate change minister doesn’t seem happy with either proposal, Justin Giovannetti writes.
New Zealand’s farmers have been presented with two options to cut agricultural emissions before a 2025 deadline. Farming is the country’s highest emitting sector and unlike other industries, it doesn’t fall under the emissions trading scheme. Instead, He Waka Eke Noa, a partnership of government officials and the main groups representing New Zealand agriculture, has been working to come up with a different approach. They’ve now sent two proposals to farmers. As Stuff reports, both options are based on funding new technology and providing farmers with incentives to cut emissions. Climate change minister James Shaw has shown some reluctance about the proposals, with would cut less than 1% of emissions by 2030. Shaw said he wanted a “serious price signal” that would fuel significant change.
What’s being proposed? One of the options would be a levy on the emissions of individual farms. It would be more expensive to administer, but would recognise farmers who have done more to cut emissions. The other would be a processor levy, paid on products bought from farms. The second option would be cheaper, but wouldn’t differentiate on the actual emissions each farm produces. Olivia Wannan has broken down the options for Stuff. While Shaw is keen on a substantial price for emissions, Farmers Weekly reports that many in the industry say a carrot works better than a stick. They want to see more of a focus on innovation and avoiding emissions, rather than taxing those that are created.
There’s technically a third option: the carbon market. If the agricultural industry can’t agree on a plan that the government wants to adopt, all the country’s farms could be made to buy credits on the country’s carbon market. It’s a nuclear option and would be far more expensive than what’s proposed. Consultations are starting soon on the two options and farmers have until April, when their preferred plan needs to go to government. A number of farmers told RNZ that they aren’t keen on either option and they’ll go to local debates to share their thoughts. They’d like to see on-farm emissions completely removed from the country’s climate programme, but they understand that won’t happen.
The government has vowed a tough climate plan will come out this year. Tackling agriculture is just one part of the programme to finally control New Zealand’s increasing emissions. Shaw and the prime minister have said it’ll be a focus this year. However, this is difficult work and our track-record is spotty. Aided by declassified documents, Ben Strang wrote in Stuff about how previous governments thought they were on top of emissions. In 1994, officials expected emissions to drop by half at the end of the decade. The then environment minister mused about negative emissions by 2000, due to all the carbon sucked up by forests. Instead, emissions rose from negative 2.8 million tonnes to positive 3.85 million in 2000. They’ve nearly tripled since then.