Submission on the draft of the Climate Change Commission’s first package of advice to Government

^{Eric Carlson, Flickr}

This submission to the Climate Change Commission focuses on their draft advice with respect to agriculture and forestry.

Key points

• It would help to move the debate forward if the Commission were to offer its view on the direction of policy with respect to pricing biogenic methane and nitrous oxide emissions.
• It would be helpful if the Commission could spell out how the reductions in stock numbers in its proposed pathway were arrived at, and what measures, beyond freshwater policy initiatives, might drive such a reduction.
• The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment agrees that we must focus on decarbonising and reducing emissions at source, and can no longer rely so heavily on forest offsets to meet our emissions reduction targets.
• A government work programme looking at the advantages and disadvantages of different ways of modifying the incentives for afforestation through the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme should be started as soon as possible.
• Further evidence from the Commission on the costs of planting native forests would be helpful for understanding the feasibility of the planting rates proposed for native forests, and for designing a policy package to incentivise investment in native forests.