World listening to NZ on vital climate deal rule changes, says Groser
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Tim Groser ... changes in international attitudes.

Other countries are coming around to New Zealand’s position on forestry and agriculture in climate-change mitigation, Carbon news reports the Associate Minister for Climate Change, Tim Groser, saying this morning.

Groser, who left for climate change talks in New York yesterday, told Carbon News (www.carbonnews.co.nz) that he and senior officials are noticing a change in attitude towards key New Zealand concerns.

A change in how land can be used and counting carbon when trees are felled will have major implications for future land use. It will also impact on Maori land use issues, according to Carbon News, the country’s only specialist carbon markets news service.

“Since we have been the government we have been trying to sell the simple message that agricultural emissions are a huge part of the climate change picture,” Groser said.

Agricultural emissions account for nearly half of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions, but until recently have been seen as a problem for New Zealand only, he said.

But now, with developing countries coming into the second Kyoto commitment period, it was starting to be recognised that agricultural emissions would have to be dealt with.

“I can sense, from the discussions I have with climate change and trade ministers, that they are starting to say ‘there’s something in what these Kiwis are saying’.

He would not say who the ministers were, but said they were from “very, very powerful” countries.

Groser says there is also growing understanding of New Zealand’s position on harvestable forests as carbon sinks.

Under current Kyoto rules, anyone who clears land of forest must pay for the carbon emitted, regardless of whether they plant new forests on other land. This could have huge implications for New Zealand land owners, who want to clear forest on productive land for farmer and to replace them with new forests on marginal land.

Groser says the fact that New Zealand is heading into international climate change talks with what he says is a achievable and realistic 2020 emissions reduction target of between 10 and 20 per cent, and will have an amended emissions trading scheme in place, will help this country’s arguments.

“There’s about a 70 per cent swing in the impact that the next commitment period could have on New Zealand, depending on the rules,” he said.

“We’ve had to accept that we had to set some targets before we know what the rules are, and that’s why we’ve tied the targets to some conditions.”

Groser is attending the informal Greenland Dialogue discussions on climate change, chaired by former New Zealand Environment Minister Simon Upton.

He will then join Prime Minister John Key at the United Nation’s Secretary General’s Summit on Climate Change.

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