NZ needs a climate change plan
put the choices plainly enough. The OECD’s once-a-decade take on New Zealand’s environment points out that the country’s emissions have risen in recent years. New Zealand is approaching the ‘‘environmental limits’’ of its agriculture-heavy growth model and must make changes if it wants to curb emissions, such as bringing farming into its Emissions Trading Scheme.
Meanwhile, research commissioned by a cross-party group of MPs lays out several scenarios – from a more or less business-as-usual approach to ambitious options that include cuts in the national dairy herd, aggressive use of emerging technologies, and extensive new forestries.
Both reports acknowledge New Zealand’s special challenges: unlike most other countries, its energy sector is already largely ‘‘decarbonised’’ (renewable); and its large proportion of agricultural emissions is hard to cut without economic pain.
But they do not leave the problem there, as the Government did for far too long. There are other sectors where New Zealand is lagging. The OECD points out transport emissions here are unusually high – with the highest car ownership rate among developed countries; an old, dirty fleet; very large public spending on roads; and unusually low petrol taxes.
What is the Government doing about this?
On agriculture, the point is not to deny the difficulties but to face and mitigate them. The OECD suggests bringing farming into the ETS – or applying other taxes to the sector – would ‘‘provide muchneeded policy certainty for the agricultural sector, encourage investment and accelerate innovation’’.
The Government will no doubt say it is funding research on agricultural emissions. But what about incentives for farmers? A better strategy would gradually introduce farming into the scheme, with time to plan, trial new technologies – and make changes to the size of herds or land use if that is the smartest response.
For now, it seems the Government plans to buy its way to its Paris targets; international carbon credits will apparently make up 80 per cent of the effort to drop emissions by 2030.
If the markets are credible, it doesn’t actually matter how global emissions come down. But credits carry a cost, too – likely billions of dollars – which will probably grow as targets become deeper.
So getting our own house in order must also be part of the mix.