Pricing ag emissions 'is wrong'

A report commissioned by B+LNZ shows that New Zealand is out of step with global climate policies. The report produced by New Zealander Macauly Jones, an independent agricultural and sustainability consultant based in Berlin, surveyed sixteen jurisdictions internationally to see how they are dealing with reducing agricultural emissions.

Acland says only one other country besides NZ - Denmark - is considering pricing agricultural emissions and their scheme is heavily subsidised.

She says B+LNZ is not saying that it doesn't have a part to play in reducing agricultural emissions, but says she wants the Government to consider alternatives to pricing. She says there is also a myth that agriculturer is being let off the hook by excluding ruminant emissions from the ETS.

"This report is about prompting the conversation that there is a better way and that we need to reconsider how we are looking at the best way to address agricultural emissions. All pricing will achieve is a further reduction in stock numbers and that's a worry," she says.

Acland says the report shows that there are examples of other countries around the world who are addressing their agricultural emissions in a better way.

Meanwhile, the issue of agricultural emissions was in the spotlight this month with a two-day agricultural and climate change conference in Wellington. This attracted more than 400 people - a mixture of scientists, politicians, policy makers and others.

Among the keynote speakers was Agriculture Minister Todd McClay who reiterated that his government is committed to farming - noting that this was why they took agriculture out of the ETS. He says it makes no sense to have a punitive tax that says farmers must change emissions on farm.

McClay says there hasd been significant investment in finding solutions for climate change mitigation.

"Those investments are coming out of the laboratory and being tested around the world and in NZ, and over the years I think these will become available. The approach we are taking is not to tax farmers, which will see less food produced. Rather, we want to collaborate with them and find technological innovations that mean NZ gets to lead the world in food production. We are not about closing farms," he says. 

As regards setting up a pricing system for agriculture by 2030, McClay to some degree played this down, saying any consideration of a price would be done later on after many other things are done, and the bottom line was they would not send jobs and production overseas.