Latest news with #EmissionsTradingScheme
Scoop
13 hours ago
- Politics
- Scoop
Climate Emergency Hypocrisy Makes Case For Ending Council Climate Activism
ACT Local Government spokesperson Cameron Luxton says today's revelations of councils spending over $1.3million on international flights since 2019 while declaring climate emergencies show exactly why ACT Local councillors are needed to stop local government climate activism. 'The hypocrisy of those councils declaring a climate emergency but then sending staff on junkets shows exactly why more common sense councillors are needed around the council table,' says Mr Luxton. 'ACT Local councillors will oppose attempts to reduce emissions at the local government level, and will move for much stricter policies for international travel. That means no international climate junkets, and all other travel must have clear benefits for ratepayers – in most instances this will mean no travel at all. 'The role of a council is to deliver core services and resilient infrastructure that can't be delivered privately – not to try to change the weather. ACT Local candidates' approach to climate change will mean: Stopping local emissions reduction plans Ending 'climate emergency' declarations Banning ratepayer-funded climate junkets Closing down emissions reduction slush funds Requiring consenting and land use decisions to disregard emissions Making spending decisions based on cost, not carbon Continued improvement of infrastructure like stormwater and stopbanks 'Emissions are already managed at central government level via the Emissions Trading Scheme - councils don't need to be involved,' says Mr Luxton. 'In Parliament, ACT is addressing local climate activism with Mark Cameron's member's bill to stop councils from considering emissions in their land use plans. ACT councillors would take this a step further, working to secure majorities around the council to take climate ideology out of councils entirely. 'ACT councillors will focus on delivering the basics well, with less waste and lower rates.'
Otago Daily Times
21 hours ago
- Climate
- Otago Daily Times
Climate strategy makes ‘lot of progress'
Dr Rebecca McLeod. Photo: ODT files In the six months since the Otago Regional Council adopted a climate strategy "a lot of progress has been made", principal strategy adviser Rebecca McLeod says. Further, Dr McLeod said two large pieces of work would soon come to councillors for their consideration. She presented councillors with the organisation's first "annual report" on the implementation and effectiveness of its climate strategy last week. "It's only actually been six months since the climate strategy was adopted in December last year, but we think quite a lot of progress has been made in a short time," Dr McLeod said. Climate change was a strong theme in the council's work, which "cuts across" all 18 of the council's strategic directions, she said. Significant progress had been made on an organisational emissions inventory, which was a "really foundational piece of work" for the council. That work is due to be presented to councillors before the end of the year and will provide a foundation for the council's yet to be developed emissions reduction plan. Secondly, Dr McLeod said a gaps analysis was planned for next year that would involve working with teams across the council, but also with other councils in the region, to look at "what we should be doing or could be doing more of or less of in order to meet the goals of the climate strategy". That work was due to take "a bit of time", but staff planned to present the analysis to councillors in the first half of next year. The gaps analysis would start to look at sequestration opportunities across the region "and then what the role is of the regional council in that space". "There's quite a bit of interesting work going on at the moment at the national government level where they're starting to look at whether they should be supporting a voluntary credit system for nature credits," Dr McLeod said. "And there's also work going on looking at whether coastal wetlands should be brought into the ETS [Emissions Trading Scheme]. "So that's actually quite good timing for us. "Hopefully, by the time we've finished the gaps analysis or got some way through the gaps analysis, the national direction on that will be quite clear." A statement from the council said that most of 53 actions in the council's climate strategy were "on track". Forty-three actions were on track, while four actions were "off track", those actions largely awaiting the outcome of central government policy reform, the statement said. Actions included in the strategy were those that would drive a reduction of the organisation's carbon emissions, several that would deliver better environmental monitoring and others that would lead to the region adapting to a changing climate, it said. — APL
Otago Daily Times
3 days ago
- Politics
- Otago Daily Times
The Bill and the trees
Something which often surprises those whose only glimpse of Parliament is a few seconds on the TV news of MPs shouting at each other, is that most politicians — just like most people — actually get along fairly well. In my experience, very few MPs are malevolent figures: they genuinely are in the job to make New Zealand a better place (as they see things) and it is not at all unusual to see friendships made across the aisle. Parliament is a workplace, albeit a very unusual one, and like most workers MPs just want to get on with their colleagues and get the job done. Hence the genuine expressions of shock and grief in the House on Thursday when the news of the death of Te Pāti Māori MP Takutai Tarsh Kemp was announced. She is the second MP to have died during this term: both she and the Green MP Fa'anānā Efeso Collins were young, first-term MPs with their abundant potential unfulfilled. The unexpected adjournment was a reminder that while politics is proposition and opposition, those advancing their ideas are real people with genuine human concerns. Before Parliament came to a shuddering halt the House did get through the first reading of the snappily entitled Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme — Forestry Conversion) Amendment Bill, one of those rare pieces of legislation where Labour and National — mostly — see eye to eye. In 2002 the then Labour government passed the well-intentioned Climate Change Response Act 2002 which — among many initiatives — allowed farmers who swapped their entire property over from tending cows and sheep to tending trees, to register for the emissions trading scheme. Farmers, like most businesspeople, are practical. Once it eventuated that there was more money in lumber than livestock, pines started proliferating and productive farmland stopped generating food. New Zealand First Taieri list MP Mark Patterson offered the Bill his full-throated endorsement. Advancing this law change is part of the National-NZ First coalition agreement and is an issue close to Mr Patterson's heart: he has seen many properties in the vicinity of his Lawrence farm given over to trees. "This is the most consequential Bill to come before this House in this term of Parliament for our rural communities," he said. "Whole-of-farm conversions of some of our most productive land, if left unchecked, are in the process of shuttering large swathes of rural New Zealand. Action is both necessary and overdue." Beef and sheep farms were doing decent business at the moment, but the current price for carbon credits meant trees were far more profitable. What's more, on current trends trees were about to become competitive with dairy farming — the backbone of New Zealand's economy. "I know: I planted some myself; I've taken advantage of this scheme," he confessed. "Why would I not? It would be looking a gift horse in the mouth." Mr Patterson said he came not to damn forestry — a $6 billion export sector in its own right — but to encourage the right trees being planted in the right place. "It does create opportunities to integrate forestry in with sheep and beef farming primarily, in a mosaic-type approach, and it can help cash-flow farm succession. It's not all down side, by any means, for our rural communities." Dunedin Labour MP Rachel Brooking said while Labour thought it was slightly ambitious to hope this Bill could solve the woes of rural communities, we could all (well, apart from the Greens and Te Pāti Māori, who voted no) agree there was a problem. "We think that some more fixing will be needed in addition to this Bill," she said. "We heard the Hon Mark Patterson speak before about a piece of farmland that he owns where he planted some trees because that is what the economics were telling him to do. "He didn't have to do it, but it made good financial sense, and people will follow the incentives." Ms Brooking noted the issue was not trees per se, but how to disincentivise carbon forests on good food-producing farmland. "These are pine trees that are planted to stay put. They might be harvested once, but then they're going to stay in the ground. "It's different from plantation forestry whereby foresters are out there planting the trees and then planning to cut them down." While broadly backing the stated intent of the Bill, Ms Brooking took issue — as the opposition has with other pieces of legislation — with the short time the environment select committee will have to consider the legislation. "The report back is only August 20, which is not much time, but it is better than all stages under urgency, which, of course, this government likes to do." Not quite peace in our time, but it was a start.
Scoop
5 days ago
- Politics
- Scoop
Have Your Say On The Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme—Forestry Conversion) Amendment Bill
The Environment Committee has called for submissions on the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme—Forestry Conversion) Amendment Bill. Currently, the Emissions Trading Scheme creates an incentive to convert land used for pastoral agriculture to production and permanent forestry. The bill would limit whole-farm conversions to exotic forestry with the aim of protecting productive land for agricultural purposes. Tell the Environment Committee what you think Make a submission on the bill by 9.00am on Monday, 07 July 2025 For more details about the bill:
Scoop
6 days ago
- Business
- Scoop
Farm-To-Forest Ban Passes First Reading
The Government has taken a major step towards protecting food production by ending the large-scale conversion of productive farmland into pine plantations, with the first reading of the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme—Forestry Conversions) Amendment Bill receiving unanimous support in Parliament last night. 'This Bill is about protecting our most valuable land that grows food for export and sustains rural communities,' Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay says. 'For too long, ETS incentives have driven the wrong outcomes for our rural sector.' 'Once farms are planted in trees as a result of carbon credits we lose the ability to produce the high-quality safe food that consumers demand – and we lose rural jobs, export earnings, and the families that go with them. Today we are putting a stop to the harm that this has done to rural New Zealand.' The Bill will: Prevent exotic forests from entering the ETS on LUC 1–5 land (New Zealand's most productive soil); Limit new ETS registrations on LUC 6 land to 15,000 hectares per year, allocated by ballot; Allow up to 25 per cent of a farm to go into the ETS, preserving landowner choice while ending full-farm conversions; Protect eligible Māori-owned land, and provide time-limited exemptions for pre-announced investments. The Bill includes temporary exemptions where an investor can provide evidence of a qualifying forestry investment between 1 January 2021 and 4 December 2024 . For instance, the purchase of land and ordering of trees prior to 4 December 2024 would be an example of proof of a qualifying investment, whilst each of these actions alone would not. 'The last Government sat back while 300,000 hectares of farmland were sold off for carbon credits. That short-sighted policy puts ideology ahead of long-term food security. We're reversing that damage.' The new settings will take effect from 4 December 2024, with the law coming fully into force in October 2025.
