The Coalition Government has softened emissions reduction targets for the agricultural sector and promised to exempt it from taxes other parts of the economy have to pay.
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced the Government would reduce the methane emissions reduction targets to between 14% and 24% of 2017 levels by 2050, down from 24% to 47% as is currently in law.
The farming industry will also be exempt from the Emissions Trading Scheme or a similar tax on emissions, which are used elsewhere in the economy to incentivise reductions.
Instead of forcing reductions through a market pricing mechanism, the Government and sector will invest in technologies and incentive payments to try to achieve the target.
Climate Minister Simon Watts said he expected reduction technologies to become available over the next five years. If that happens, and 30% of farmers take them up, total agricultural emissions could fall between 7% and 14% by 2050.
“Our approach is clear: technology and partnership, not taxes, will deliver the reductions that we need. By investing in new tools and giving farmers practical support, we can cut emissions without cutting production or profitability,” he said.
Other industries and households are not so lucky. Other activities in New Zealand have to pay a carbon tax, except certain trade-exposed businesses which are given free tax credits.
The Government worried that imposing a similar scheme on agriculture, even at a lower tax rate, would result in less food production in New Zealand and more overseas — potentially creating more emissions in the process.
Previously, the Labour Government planned to phase in a soft methane emissions price from 2025, which the National-led Government pushed to 2030 and has now scrapped altogether.
Without a tax on emissions, the Government seems to be relying on buyers such as Fonterra and Silver Fern Farms to penalise high-emission farmers through lower prices.
Roughly 46% of methane emissions are produced by dairy farms. Cooperative Fonterra controls more than 80% of the market and would be able to penalise high-emission farms.
The sheep and beef meat market is dominated by four processing and export firms—Silver Fern Farms, Alliance Group, ANZCO Foods, and AFFCO—but is not as concentrated as dairy.
A fact sheet released alongside the announcement said: “It’s important to note, large processors such as Fonterra and Silver Fern Farms, already have emissions reduction targets driven by international export markets. These will play a key role in reducing emissions on-farm.”
This may mean farms still have to meet higher emissions reduction targets to be paid full prices from these buyers, depending on the expectations of export markets.
Paris is next
Act Party agriculture spokesperson Mark Cameron celebrated the softened target, saying in a press release that the Paris Agreement would be next.
“Labour’s unscientific climate targets could only be met by destocking and shutting down farms. Today’s decision shows that balance and common sense have returned, with targets that can be met through business-as-usual efficiency improvements," Cameron said.
Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said the halving of methane targets was done using a “cheap accounting trick that will cost our country dearly”.
This is a reference to the “no additional warming” approach which allows agriculture to lock-in the amount of warming it had already created in 2017. The old target aimed to reduce methane enough to have a cooling effect, as the gas dissipates more quickly than carbon.
“Today Christopher Luxon has downgraded climate ambition, meaning a higher cost of living and ultimately far worse outcomes for the farmers he says he’s doing this for,” she said.
“Methane is a superheating gas — 80 times stronger at frying our atmosphere than carbon in the short-term. To keep a liveable planet, we must cut methane emissions”.
Amanda Larsson, a Greenpeace Aotearoa climate campaigner, said Luxon had gone “full-on Trump” with a decision which could “derail the global fight against climate change”.
"New Zealand is the world’s biggest dairy exporter. If we back down on cutting emissions from our most polluting industry, you can bet other big livestock-producing countries will jump on the bandwagon. That could be game over for the climate," she said in a press release.
Labour spokesperson Deborah Russell said New Zealanders deserve to see the advice and analysis this decision was based on — given the Government had rejected independent Climate Change Commission advice.
“Labour stands ready to work on practical, bipartisan climate solutions - backing farmers with certainty and tools to keep New Zealand competitive. But the Government has shut us out. This decision risks our reputation, our exports, and our economy,” she said.
24 Comments
Climate Minister Simon Watts said he expected reduction technologies to become available over the next five years. If that happens, and 30% of farmers take them up, total agricultural emissions could fall between 7% and 14% by 2050.
More use of the so called Green Shoots....
Imagine a rogue has dumped a barrel of poison in a village well. The poison makes the villagers ill. The poison decays away eventually, but the rogue keeps coming back to top up the poison... and the villagers keep getting ill.
When the villagers confront the rogue, he explains, with a straight face, 'This is a no additional poisoning approach, I'm not doing anything wrong'. Sadly, the village appointed the village idiot as Chief Well Overseer and he thinks the rogue makes a good point. In fact, he is going to make the case for just such an approach at the next meeting of village Well Overseers. He looks forward to teaching them all a thing or two.
The End.
Was the guy who poisoned the well named Jonathan Rinderknecht?
https://abc7.com/post/jonathan-rinderknecht-what-know-suspect-accused-s…
profile,
On a different topic, do you remain convinced by the Milei Miracle in Argentina? It would seem that not all citizens are true believers, judging from the substantial defeat in the recent Buenos Aires local elections. It will be interesting to see what happens in the upcoming congressional elections.
You forgot to mention that the villagers drove to and from the confrontation in vehicles producing well poison that does not degrade over time and will forever change the well.
Putting it into perspective NZ has 5 million (down from 6 million), and India has 600 million moocows
Why not create a separate country called Southland and take that argument up a level?
Proportionally then India makes do with 0.3 cows per person while we have almost 1 cow per person. That would imply our methane intensity per capita is likely to be higher than India's.
Of course what we do is only important because it allows us to hold those much bigger countries to account without it turning into a pot/kettle argument.
Of course what we do is only important because it allows us to hold those much bigger countries to account without it turning into a pot/kettle argument.
How?
What natural advantage does NZ hold over other countries? Pretty much that's is the mild maritime climate and soils meaning an advantage in food and fibre production. And it is on that advantage that NZ is what it is, today.
Comparing methane output alone on a per capita basis is a farcical argument. It's, to me, like requiring each human to breathe less to reduce their CO² output which also contributes to global warming.
nnz,
As IT guy says, how? Just how do we "hold those much bigger countries to account"? I am not a farmer, but I do know just how much we depend on our agricultural sector for export earnings and as far as i know, we still have no 'silver bullet' to reduce methane emissions. That leaves massive stock reduction as our only means of doing so currently. Is that what you want?
So what? The best way to progress the fight against climate change is for all to do their share. And this government is not interested in NZ doing our share. This will not go well because with the exception of deranged US most other developed countries are now making decent climate change efforts and are likely to punish those not doing their bit with border carbon/GHG taxes.
We already do our share in the scam.
"New Zealand was a net CO2 sink of −38.6 ± 13.4 million tonne C yr−1."
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023GB007845
Wait to you find out about the models
They have just found a lot of methane seeping out in the Antarctic. How are we going to stop this.
That's called 'natural methane' so it's ok 😆
That is indeed a Inconvenient Truth
Well if it’s a naturally occurring long term phenomenon it’s probably part of historical environmental equilibrium, not recent human-created imbalance that’s creating rapid climate change. Probably better to try and control or manage what we can rather than look for excuses not to bother
LONDON, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Food group Nestle (NESN.S), opens new tab said on Wednesday it had withdrawn from a global alliance for cutting methane emissions
Queensland State Govt just abandoned its Net Zero targets and has extended the life of its coal plants by 15 years.
Silver lining, now all the virtuous Kiwi's will no longer be able to relocate there.
The first sentence of this article is in my opinion incorrect. The ETS currently relates only to CO2. Agriculture pays for its CO2 emissions in the same way as the rest of the economy. Today's announcement relates to methane. No-one in NZ currently pays for methane emissions.
It seems inevitable that the issue of methane emissions will remain controversial, at least in part because explaining the science in simple terms is not easy. However, using a split-gas approach independent of CO2 equivalence is a good place to start. The idea of converting short-lived methane into long-lived CO2 equivalence has always been a journey of confusion.
Only time will tell as to whether or not a bi-partisan approach to methane emissions policy is achievable in NZ. What is very clear is that currently we do not have a bi-partisan approach across the political spectrum.
KeithW
It seems that issues, that would require a bi-partisan approach, are now so political. It needs agreement from that the 3 parties left and 3 parties right (who cannot seemingly agree themselves), before trying to compromise across left and right.
I gave up hope of this in the US about 7 years ago
The only agreement is that we can all chew gum while walking
Methane from some sources is included in the ETS. Landfill, gas producers, and geothermal energy are all charged for their methane emissions. It gets converted to a C02 equivalent for pricing but is still taxed under the scheme.
About 15% of methane emissions are priced.
Brazil making a killing on carbon credits.
Increasing tree size across Amazonia
We assessed recent changes in the structure of Earth’s largest tropical forest by analysing 30 years of Amazonian tree records across 188 mature forest plots. We find that, at a stand level, trees have become larger over time, with mean tree basal area increasing by 3.3% per decade (95% CI 2.4; 4.1). Larger trees have increased in both number and size, yet we observed similar rates of relative size gain in large and small trees. This evidence is consistent with a resource-driven boost for larger trees but also a reduction in suppression among smaller trees. These results, especially the persistence and consistency of tree size increases across Amazonian forest plots, communities and regions, indicate that any negative impacts of climate change on forests and large trees here have so far been mitigated by the positive effects of increased resources.
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