The Government’s announcement today of a 2035 climate target of a 51-55% emissions reduction has signed New Zealand up for a decade more of planting pine on productive land, Federated Farmers meat and wool chair Toby Williams says.
“In the past, New Zealand has signed up to Paris Agreement targets that are achievable only by either paying billions of dollars for international units or planting large areas of New Zealand in carbon forestry.
“The 2030 target of a 50% reduction in all greenhouse gas emissions in just the next five years is already completely beyond reach.
“Even by 2035, as half of New Zealand’s emissions are from agriculture, a target of 51-55% is still not feasible.
“All the target does is commit us to 10 more years of planting pines, because that’s the only way for our country to achieve such a steep reduction.”
Williams says New Zealand’s options for achieving the climate targets are simple.
“We can’t reduce our emissions to the extent required without trade-offs that would see New Zealand worse off.
“Treasury has estimated that the 2030 target, if we were to meet it, would cost up to $24 billion. The Prime Minister, when interviewed on Q+A with Jack Tame late last year, couldn’t commit to hitting the target, as he said it was very challenging.
“So, our only other options are to send billions of dollars overseas to buy offshore credits, or plant pine trees, destroying our iconic and world-famous landscapes.”
Last year, the Climate Commission suggested keeping an all-gases target and at least a 50% reduction, which would mean another 850,000 hectares of land converted to forestry.
“To paint a clear picture: that’s an area five times the size of our country’s treasured Molesworth Station,” Williams says.
“That would be devastating, forever changing the face of New Zealand.
“There is a very real risk that we could become the great pine plantation of the South Pacific – hardly something to be proud of.”
Williams says the Government needs to be setting climate targets that are realistic and achievable.
“Mr Luxon is right now facing an unachievable target for 2030 left to him by the previous Government.
“Signing up to an even more ambitious target for 2035 has simply created the same headache for a future Prime Minister.”
Parliament agreed in 2019 to set ‘split-gas’ targets for greenhouse gas reductions domestically. This means short-lived methane is treated differently to long-lived carbon dioxide.
Taking this split-gas approach to our international targets would see New Zealand in a position to set more achievable targets.
“Federated Farmers wrote to Climate Change Minister Simon Watts in October last year asking for a meeting to discuss a split-gas approach to an emissions target, but we didn’t get a reply,” Williams says.
“That’s extremely disappointing. It seems he doesn’t even want to hear our concerns for rural New Zealand, let alone understand them. It’s wilful blindness.
“We really need the Government to start setting achievable targets that don’t require huge levels of forestry, and we need the Government to use the most up-to-date science on the warming impact of methane.”
