Herald NOW’s Ryan Bridge speaks with Labour leader Chris Hipkins. Video / Herald NOW
Opinion by Thomas Coughlan
Thomas Coughlan, Political Editor at the New Zealand Herald, loves applying a political lens to people's stories and explaining the way things like transport and finance touch our lives.
“We are looking at the science as well, we’re not just talking to farmers we are talking to the researchers who are doing the work in this area too,” he said.
Hipkins made the remarks ahead of the agriculture trade show, Fieldays, which is this week.
Hipkins said he remained committed to the overall goal of reducing emissions but Labour was “not committed to a particular way of doing that at this point”.
He said there were “technological solutions as well” to fixing the agricultural emissions problem.
“There is fantastic science happening in New Zealand funded by the last Labour Government about how we can... reduce methane emissions through more sustainable farming practice,” he said.
Labour has supported agriculture going into the ETS, or some form of agriculture being in the ETS, since it created the scheme in 2008.
What is currently unclear is the extent to which the policy is under review. Labour, since being turfed out of government, has put its entire policy platform under review.
Some policies may re-emerge from the review in a similar form to the 2023 manifesto, while others may be very different.
The only guide is the party’s policy platform, which acts as a constraint on what the party’s candidates can campaign on.
The Fifth Labour Government created the ETS in 2008. The responsible Minister David Parker, who retired from politics this year, structured the scheme so sectors of the economy entered it gradually.
At the time, Prime Minister John Key cited concerns New Zealand’s trading partners were not taking climate change seriously and putting agriculture in the ETS would make New Zealand farmers less competitive.
Labour consistently tried to bring agriculture into the scheme, forcing the sector to pay a price for its emissions, although Labour only ever proposed a heavily discounted price.
In 2017, Labour campaigned on slowly bringing the sector into the ETS, at a discounted rate of 90%, meaning farmers would only pay 10% of the prevailing emissions price.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern with, from left, ministers James Shaw, Damien O'Connor and Kieran McAnulty, announcing the new farm emissions plan. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Later, the He Waka Eke Noa process was launched to work out a separate emissions pricing solution for agriculture to begin in 2025. If that work fell apart, agriculture would have entered the ETS as a backstop.
National initially backed He Waka Eke Noa, but later pulled away. In 2023 National promised not to put agriculture in the ETS and no emissions price until 2030.
The current coalition government ended He Waka Eke Noa and removed the backstop.
The latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory, published by the Ministry for the Environment using StatsNZ figures showed agriculture was responsible for 53% of New Zealand’s gross greenhouse gas emissions.
The bulk of these are from methane, which is a short-lived gas. The fact it is short-lived has seen an argument mounted by the Government that it should be treated differently to long-lived gasses.
The challenge for policymakers is that lifting the burden for emissions reduction from agriculture generally means pushing down more heavily on other sectors.
