Carbon road map must consider economic, social impacts

Carbon road map must consider economic, social impacts - Feds

Federated Farmers supports moves to significantly reduce emissions and meet our Paris Agreement commitments but says this should not be at the expense of New Zealanders’ economic and social wellbeing.

"We need that clear road map to a low net emissions economy and a long-term plan of action that endures political cycles. But New Zealand should not lock itself into an inflexible approach that disadvantages us more than other nations," Feds climate change spokesperson Andrew Hoggard says.

"In the decades to 2050 we’ll also be grappling with the major cost implications of an ageing population. We must have regard for the impact various ‘net zero’ options would have on emissions prices and on GDP, jobs and incomes."

In its submission on the Zero Carbon Bill, Federated Famers said the best option of the three put forward in the Our Climate Your Say discussion paper was the "two baskets’ approach that focused on reductions in long-lived greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide) while stabilising short-lived emissions (methane).

New Zealand’s primary industries earned 64% of our total merchandise export income in 2017/18, not to mention the several billion dollars of food produced for domestic consumption. We have an unsubsidised but highly efficient agricultural sector which is markedly exposed to competition from moderately to highly subsidised producers in other nations, Andrew said.

"Successive governments have worked hard to remove barriers to trade. It would be counterproductive for future governments to impose costs on our producers that would undermine those trade gains.

"The wrong policies could reduce our emissions-efficient food production, a gap that will be filled by much less emissions-efficient producers overseas. We lose economically, and so does the planet in terms of global warming and climate change."

The Federation’s submission said regardless of which 2050 target is adopted, agricultural biological emissions should not come under the ETS until cost-effective mitigations are available to farmers and our international competitors make similar moves.

It also noted the great potential for forest and other woody vegetation to sequest carbon, including establishment of new commercial forests, farm woodlots, shelter belts, slope stability, erosion control planting and riparian planting.

"But there’s a warning with this," Andrew said. "We’re very concerned about the potential for climate change policy to drive large-scale land use change from sheep and beef farming to forestry, when it’s farming that underpins the social, economic and employment viability of rural communities."

The notion that foresters will want to plant on marginal land "is highly questionable.

"Resource management, health and safety and economic factors are shifting new commercial forestry planting to land that is easy to maintain, and close to transport and processing infrastructure - the sort of land currently farmed," Andrew said.

"When plantation forestry is harvested on steep, highly erodible land, land users and communities downstream are highly vulnerable to catastrophically destructive and costly debris flow damage - just think of recent events at Motueka and Tologa Bay."

ENDS

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