Yesterday the government announced its interim climate change committee - a group of experts to advise it on climate change policy. The group is intended to eventually become a permanent independent climate change commission once the government's Zero Carbon Act is passed, but they need advice now, so an interim body has been set up in the meantime. And their first order of business is working out how to make farmers pay for the pollution they cause:
A new climate change group has been immediately tasked with working out how New Zealand farmers can pay for their climate pollution.
And the highly controversial decision about whether and when the agricultural industry is charged for its greenhouse gases could fall close to the next election.
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The commission won't be set up until May, and Shaw said that in the meantime work needed to get underway on two key issues – agriculture's inclusion in the Emissions Trading Scheme and the goal of moving to 100 per cent renewable electricity by 2035.
Any changes to the Emissions Trading Scheme will be finalised in late 2019, meaning if they are delayed they could be decided in the heat of the 2020 general election.
Agriculture is responsible for ~50% of our total greenhouse gas emissions, so working out how and when to bring it into the ETS and set it on a downward pathway is vital if we are to have any hope of reducing our emissions and doing our bit to reduce the damage caused by climate change. The current situation, where the rest of New Zealand effectively subsidises farmers to polluter, is neither fair nor effective, and provides farmers with no incentive at all to clean up their act. While any transition will need to take into account the technology and methods available to limit emissions, its important that we establish the principle of farmers paying their way, as well as providing an incentive to prevent further growth of their polluting industry. Neither the climate nor our rivers can afford more cows, and bringing farms into the ETS will help prevent that.
Naturally, the farmers are squealing at the prospect of being made to pay their own bills. We should resist that self-interested whining. We pay for our pollution now; they should too. Urban New Zealand should not be expected to support the polluting and environmentally destructive lifestyle of rural New Zealand.
