Spinning the Climate Stuff
OPINION: With the winter months officially here, I trust all is well at your place.
Minister for Climate Change James Shaw has announced the membership of the Interim Climate Change Committee.
The committee will begin work on how New Zealand transitions to a net zero emissions economy by 2050.
Committee members have been chosen because of their expertise across areas related to climate change: agriculture, agribusiness, climate change science and policy, resource economics and impacts, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, te reo me ona tikanga Māori and Māori interests, international competitiveness, and energy production and supply.
“If we want to help lead the world towards meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement, we must create a moral mandate underpinned by decisive action at home to reduce our own emissions,” says Shaw.
“Setting up the Interim Climate Change Committee is a great step in that direction,”
Dr David Prentice, the Interim Committee Chair, was most recently the chief executive and managing director of infrastructure firm Opus International Consultants.
He is joined by deputy chair, Lisa Tumahai, who has significant governance experience and is Kaiwhakahaere of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu.
The other committee members are:
DairyNZ says Waikato farmers need certainty on Plan Change 1, but they say that certainty must be matched with practical, workable rules and a clear transition that doesn't get ahead of the new resource management system currently under review.
While the Government has moved quickly to make commercial hauliers' lot easier during the current fuel crisis, they appear to be stuck in the creep box when it comes to the agricultural industry.
Waikato farmers have been told that the Government’s new planning system legislation and the region’s Plan Change 1 (PC1) “won’t mesh together very well”.
Farmer owned co-operative Ravensdown has signed a two-year naming rights sponsorship of the Canterbury A&P Show.
OPINION: Confidence in the wool sector is rebounding as prices hit levels not seen in more than 15 years.
More than 300 growers, exporters, researchers, service providers and industry leaders will descend on Queenstown later this month for EXPO 2026, the annual conference for New Zealand’s apple and pear sector.

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