Responding to the publication of the Ministry for the Environment’s consultation document, New Zealand's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Callum Purves, said:

“The beauty of the Emissions Trading Scheme is that it ensures that we reduce net emissions and work towards our international climate commitments in the most efficient way possible and at the least cost to the taxpayer. But in order to do this effectively, the ETS must be neutral in the way that emissions are reduced or taken out of the atmosphere.

“The Government’s shift towards focussing on gross rather net emissions will ultimately not make any difference to tackling climate change and seems to prioritize virtue signalling over effective action. Instead it should focus on small tweaks such as removing the price floor to allow the market to clear and granting NZUs for sequestration from new carbon capture technologies.

“Concerns around the proliferation of forestry and land use more generally should be dealt with through separate environmental rules outside the ETS."

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