Farmers upset by National's plan to have an emissions trading scheme are being challenged by John Key to consider who would suffer the consequences of future climate change if nothing is done - the next generation of farmers.
The National leader yesterday made the comment during a campaignstop in the dairy farming stronghold of Taranaki.
In a state-of-the-art milking shed just outside Waitara, he recounted a farmer telling him the night before that he preferred Act's policy to scrap the emissions trading scheme.
National's policy is to rework the scheme, but to still have one. Mr Key's first mention of the words "emissions trading scheme" brought a groan from the Taranaki audience.
"Even Fonterra doesn't want us to dump the scheme," Mr Key said. "All of the advice that we get is that there will be a pushback from consumers internationally I don't think we'd be helping you, I think in the long-term, we'd be hurting you."
The agriculture sector contributes around half of New Zealand's overall greenhouse gas emissions but it has limited options to reduce the methane emissions unless the number of animals is reduced.
Under Mr Key's leadership National has opted to have an emissions trading scheme and clearly some of its own constituency is not impressed with the position.
Mr Key said that if farmers accepted "for just a moment" that human-induced climate change was happening, if the world did not play its part it might lead to catastrophic weather conditions.
"Who is going to bear that most? I can tell you who it's going to be. It's farmers," Mr Key said. "It might not be you, but it might be the generation that you pass your farm to."
