Wednesday, May 31, 2023



Climate Change: He waka eke noa is dead, hurrah!

Politik (paywalled) reports that He waka eke noa, the farmers' scam to have the rest of us subsidise their emissions forever, so they can keep on destroying the planet, is dead:

Reality appears to be about to shatter Jacinda Ardern's dream that New Zealand could lead the world in showing how to deal with farm emissions.

The Government is facing a breakdown in negotiations over its much-vaunted He Waka Eke Noa deal with farmers to price greenhouse gas emissions and now looks likely to have to admit defeat.

The consequence is likely to be that the Government will now have to impose a new fertiliser levy on all farmers without their agreement.

Good. Because quite apart from the sheer injustice of farmers being carried by the rest of us, while we pay for every kilo of carbon we emit, He waka eke noa was a terrible plan, needlessly complicated, and significantly worse than the default option of simply including agricultural emissions in the ETS at the processor level. I am glad to see it die. And now its dead, the government should activate the backstop, and bring farm emissions into the ETS as quickly as posible (legislating urgently if necessary; its not like these parasites haven't had fair warning, or a decade of consultation). And if farmers are upset, fuck them. They have no-one to blame but themselves.