ACT Party climate policy outlines desire to revisit New Zealand's Emissions Reduction Plans as it proposes a 'split gas' emissions target

The ACT Party is reigniting debate about the Paris Agreement and New Zealand's Emissions Reduction Plans, in its climate policy announcement at Fieldays in Hamilton on Wednesday.

As part of its 2026 election campaign, the ACT Party says it wants to revisit the country’s Emissions Reduction Plans.

"ACT will reset these around realistic targets," the party's agriculture spokesperson Andrew Hoggard, a former Federated Farmers President, said.

The party is also proposing a “split gas” emissions target and wants to make sure agriculture is kept out of the Emissions Trading Scheme.

“New Zealand's farmers are the most emissions-efficient in the world, yet they are treated like climate villains and punished by climate targets that ignore the difference between methane from livestock and carbon from fossil fuels," Hoggard said.

Under this current approach, he said prime farmland gets converted to pine trees and farmers face new costs for emissions they're already managing efficiently.

“And global emissions don't drop - because other countries with higher-footprint production simply fill the gap."

“That's not an environmental outcome. That's an economic and environmental own-goal," Hoggard said.

‘Paris needs to change, or New Zealand needs to leave’

ACT hasn’t shied away from being critical of New Zealand’s involvement in The Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty on climate change.

In September, ACT called for New Zealand to alter its emissions reduction goals in the Paris Agreement - or withdraw from the pact completely. At the time, ACT leader David Seymour said: “Paris needs to change, or New Zealand needs to leave.”

ACT shared its full position statement via a document called A Better Climate Deal, where it mentioned revisiting the country’s Emissions Reduction Plans and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) under the Paris Agreement.

Under the Paris Agreement, every country has set out its own NDC - this is to show the contributions countries will make towards delivering on the Paris Agreement goals. The obligations under the 2015 Paris Agreement is to limit global warming to “well below 2 °C” and attempt to keep it to 1.5 °C.

What ACT wants

On Wednesday, Hoggard said the Paris Agreement provided a pathway for New Zealand to issue its own NDC and ACT was campaigning to do that in the next term of Parliament.

The Party is proposing:

• Recognising a split gas approach that treats long-life gases like carbon dioxide and short-lived gases like methane differently
• Revisiting Emissions Reduction Plans
• Keeping agriculture out of the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)

Hoggard said current climate targets treated methane from a cow the same as carbon from a coal burner, claiming this wasn’t scientific.

“The result is that New Zealand farmers are being told to cut production while other countries increase output. That's not reducing global emissions, it's sending our jobs, our land, and our food production offshore - to countries that produce it less efficiently and with a higher carbon cost. It's exporting jobs, investment, and food production overseas.”

ACT’s climate spokesperson Simon Court said: “ACT will submit a new Split-Gas emissions target that focuses on actual warming. Long-lived gases will continue on a path to lowering emissions, while biogenic methane will be managed under a No Additional Warming approach.”

When it came to removing agriculture from the ETS, Court said “taxing the world’s most emission-efficient farmers won’t change the climate.”

“It will just make food more expensive and push production into less efficient countries.”

“Last year, ACT made it clear that the Paris Agreement is broken and that New Zealand deserves a better climate deal. Today, we are putting forward exactly what that better deal looks like," said Court.

“New Zealand produces dairy with a carbon footprint 46% lower than the global average. We should be expanding our production, not retreating. ACT is the only party with the courage to stand up to the UN, rewrite the rules, and secure a future where farming grows.”

Climate currently

Following Seymour’s comments in September, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon made it clear that New Zealand would not be leaving the Paris Agreement, saying: “It would only damage, hurt, and punish our farmers. Our competitor countries would like nothing more than to see New Zealand products off their shelves.”

Luxon said the Government had already kept agriculture out of the Emissions Trading Scheme.

Alongside this, other changes have been made to the country’s climate policies such as restricting the Climate Change Commission to monitoring rather than advising on emissions reduction plans, removing the requirement for Emissions Trading Scheme settings to align with New Zealand’s Paris Agreement targets, and reducing the target for methane emissions.

The current government also reversed the offshore oil and gas exploration ban in 2024.

In December, Finance Minister Nicola Willis told the Finance and Expenditure Committee the Government was not prepared to send billions of dollars offshore to meet the Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement.

Countries can transfer carbon credits earned from reducing greenhouse gas emissions to help other countries meet their climate targets.

At the time, Willis said she did not believe it was in the best interests of New Zealanders to send billions of dollars offshore.

It remained a priority for the Government to meet its Nationally Determined Contributions, Willis said.

"We are working hard to ensure that our priority of domestic climate action is met."

Experts told RNZ it would not be possible for the country to meet its climate change commitments by only focusing on domestic emissions reductions.