Media release

7 December 2012

New Zealand faces carbon market shutdown

New Zealand could be shut out of international Kyoto-compliant carbon markets, Carbon News reports this morning.

The country’s specialist carbon market information service says that technically countries that are not signatories to the Kyoto Protocol do not have access to credits United Nations offset credits.

New Zealand, Japan and Canada have announced that they will not sign up to the second commitment period of the protocol, prompting India, China, South Africa and Brazil to call for the rules on access to UN offsets to be imposed.

Carbon News says that means this country would no longer have access to the internationally traded CER units, which have become popular with New Zealand emitters since a dramatic fall in price last year.

It reports a New Zealand carbon broker as saying the exclusion rule is unlikely to be enforced, but even if it is, it won’t have a huge impact on the New Zealand market.

“There won’t be an immediate effect, because in 2013/14 we’re in the wash-up period for KP1,” said OMFinancial’s Nigel Brunel.

“It won’t be until 2015 onwards that we’ll see any impact at all, and a lot can happen between now and then.”

Further news is at www.carbonnews.co.nz
ends

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