Madeline Hall points out that price is not the thing that truly makes change happen. Focusing only on that can create an unstable tipping point with unintended consequences

For farmers who need external incentives as emitters to make real change in their practices, there seem to be are none. I asked Madeline Hall, Senior Environment Policy Analyst at Beef+Lamb her thoughts on this critical area.

“The whole theory about this emissions trading scheme is that if you get a price to a certain point, that price is going to tip people over the edge because the price to buy an emissions offset is greater than the cost of actually changing behaviour. And as, as we can sometimes understand, theory to practice doesn't always work.”

Hall said, “Evidence has suggested worldwide that actually, price is not the thing that truly makes change happen. It's a whole other wider set of policies and frameworks that align together in coordination with an emissions price to really see emissions reductions happening on the ground and in ways that are actually supportive of achieving the multiple objectives that we have. Because I guess from my perspective, change doesn't necessarily have to be hard, right? If we make some choices about the way that we want to approach change, and the way that we can make it become an opportunity for how we want to be living our lives and living within our communities, that's fantastic but it means that we really have to make some serious choices now, and some really tough calls at times, so that we are operating in a way that can achieve our values and visions.”

Beef+Lamb's main concern is with the scale, pace and style of plantings that we're currently seeing happening right now on New Zealand farms. Beef+Lamb does not think that the majority of this planting is done in a way that supports the vision of a resilient sheep and beef farming landscape and thriving rural communities.

“We recognize that sheep and beef farmers have many choices on how best to optimize the use of their land resources, and especially in ways that help them meet their own personal goals as well as adapt to the impacts of climate change. At the end of the day, we truly believe that sheep and beef meat production is a profitable and sustainable land use across New Zealand's landscapes.

"And as part of that there are plenty of opportunities within existing sheep and beef operations for carbon forestry that can be well aligned with sustainable meat production. We, as a levy body organization are truly responsible for our levy payers, alongside the wider sheep meat and beef industry.”

“And this means that we want to focus on the sustainable profitability of our farmers, the vibrancy of their communities, and the critical mass within regions that's needed to support successful meat processing and exporting. So we're balancing a whole lot of considerations here, when we're putting forward our vision in the space. And we do respect landowners land use decision rights within the context of our current legal and regulatory frameworks, but right now we don't think that those settings are right because individuals including corporate individuals, are not necessarily being required to take full responsibility for managing the results of their actions, especially in the carbon forestry space.”

“We really think that as land stewards and as land owners and responsible members of the sheep and beef industry we want to make sure that we can manage the externalities of our given land use and land use choices, and that the kind of regulations that we want to be putting in place to manage those risks are commensurate with the burden that they will be placing on either a farmer or on the wider community. So if we as individuals or as our farmers are being asked to take responsibility, that also means the government needs to take responsibility which means that the government of the day must acknowledge and take responsibility for the policies and their impacts implemented under their leadership. We believe that right now, the current government of day is not doing that fully and that the policies that drive land use decisions should consider both the short and long term economic, social, cultural and environmental impacts for New Zealand supported by some really robust analysis. The ETS settings right now are kind of a free for all for emitters to completely offset their emissions without actually considering the consequences of that, for how New Zealand is going to be achieving its emissions reduction targets, nor for the consequences of our land use flexibility or our rural communities and their resilience. So we really encourage policy settings that can offer multiple benefits and achieve multiple outcomes, especially within a space that provides for thriving and resilient sectors, including sheep and beef.”

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Angus Kebbell is the Producer at Tailwind Media. You can contact him here.