News soon on farm emissions
WELLINGTON: Farmers can expect to hear soon how much they will have to pay for their agricultural emissions over the next five years, the Prime Minister says.
Jacinda Ardern took to the world stage last week and declared New Zealand was ‘‘determined’’ to be the most sustainable food producer in the world.
Now back from the UN Climate Action Summit in New York, she faces the formidable task of forging political consensus on how best to cut agricultural emissions.
Under a plan being considered by the Government, farmers would incur some of the costs of their emissions under a levyrebate system by 2025, and possibly through the Emissions Trading Scheme earlier.
Federated Farmers’ biannual confidence survey, released in August, showed farmers were becoming increasingly worried about how climate change policy might affect them.
Nearly a quarter of 1432 farmers who took part in the July survey cited climate change policy and the Emissions Trading Scheme as their main worry (23.6%). It was the first time since 2010 the issue has been listed by respondents as the most pressing overall.
In the same month, the Interim Climate Change Committee released a report that included a proposal to introduce the agricultural sector to the ETS by 2025. It also proposed introducing a farmlevel levy/rebate scheme.
Consultation on the discussion document closed in August.
Ms Ardern told RNZ yesterdaythe committee’s recent report said it would take until 2025 to get the infrastructure in place for a farmbyfarm pricing mechanism and measuring mechanism.
‘‘I want to point to the historic agreement that’s been reached around agricultural pricing mechanisms and farmbyfarm from 2025 which again I do think we should acknowledge is worldleading and for the purposes of us being able to trade with confidence, and point out to the world that we are sustainable food producers because that is going to affect whether or not consumers want our products.
‘‘So it makes sense for us to actually take a leadership role here. We will benefit economically if we do so.’’— RNZ