By Celsias
Posted on July 11, 2011. Listed in:
Extremely predictable reaction today from Federated Farmers to yesterday's release of details on the Australian Government's carbon tax.The Australian scheme will place a carbon tax on the country's top 500 polluters from 1 July 2012 and move to a full emissions trading scheme from 2015.Agricultural emissions will not be carbon taxed and neither will fuel used on farms.
Federated Farmers says the Australian government's carbon tax package will put further pressure on the New Zealand Government to leave agriculture out of its emissions trading scheme. Sound familiar ?
Australian farmers will also be able to tap into new funds for tree planting and carbon farming where they get credits and no liabilities. New Zealand's ETS is set to include agriculture from 2015.But federated Farmers fail to point out that about 49% of New Zealand's GHG emissions are agriculturally based whereas that figure in Australia is less than 20% .So an ETS that leaves out agriculture in New Zealand would be a farce.And any attempt as outlined at the launch of Pure Advantage last week to position ourselves as true to the Pure brand would be laughable.
Nonetheless the response from Federated Farmers president Bruce Wills is entirely predictable as Federate Farmers has opposed this all along the way and they think that the Australian approach will add weight to the argument that New Zealand should not put itself out on a limb from the rest of the world, by taxing livestock emissions. This image of New Zealand being out on a limb way ahead of the rest of the world has been used consistently in Federated Farmers press releases as though somehow New Zealand is a world leader in its climate change legislation . Are they looking at the same country?
New Zealand's Climate Change Minister Nick Smith says the two schemes have more common points than differences in the approach they're taking.
He says the New Zealand scheme, for example, provides substantial credits for those foresters who plant trees for the carbon emissions that's absorbed by those.
Dr Smith says that's provided indirectly in the Australian scheme through an incentive model that means there's little difference in practice.
