New Zealand is set to introduce a world-first scheme that will require farmers to pay for the greenhouse gas emissions coming from their agriculture.
This includes methane that is released by cows and nitrous oxide emitted by livestock urine. Combined, these two types of emissions contributes to around half of New Zealand’s overall emissions output.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and three ministers unveiled a new government plan today for putting a price on the climate cost of the agriculture sector.
The emissions created by the digestive systems of New Zealand’s 6.3 million cows are among the country’s biggest environmental problems.
The new plan includes taxation on both methane emitted by livestock and nitrous oxide emitted mostly from fertilizer-rich urine. The plan would mean that farmers in New Zealand would be the first in the world to reduce agriculture emissions.
The plan would also give the biggest export market in the nation a competitive global advantage, while also putting the nation on track to meet its 2030 methane reduction targets.
The farming industry in New Zealand is worth $46.4 billion a year.
“No other country in the world has yet developed a system for pricing and reducing agricultural emissions, so our farmers are set to benefit from being first movers,” Ardern said.
“Cutting emissions will help New Zealand farmers to not only be the best in the world but the best for the world,” the prime minister said.
Under the new plan, by 2050, farmers who meet the threshold for herd size and fertilizer use will be required to pay a levy the government will set every one to three years. This will stem from advice from the Climate Change Commission and farmers.
The price will be influenced by the country’s progress towards meeting its international promise to cut methane by 10 percent by 2030, down from 2017 levels.
It comes alongside a net-zero emissions target for 2050.
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