Emissions trading scheme cleared for takeoff

The New Zealand Government’s planned Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is set to pass into law after coalition partners came out in support of the climate change measure, in spite of qualms about some aspects. 

Announcing her party’s support, Green Party Co-Leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said in a statement that the caucus had decided that substantial changes to the ETS the party had won justified voting for it. 

Revenue from the ETS would be recycled into a billion dollar fund to make New Zealand homes warm, dry and cost-effective to heat.

"To avoid locking New Zealand into old technology, there will be a contestable pool of credits for firms with new technologies that help set our economy on a low carbon path. Rules around allocation of free credits will be tightened so that not all firms will get 90 per cent if they don't need them,” she said.

Another support party, New Zealand First, has also weighed in behind the ETS, giving the government the necessary mandate to have the measure go through parliament.

Earlier, the Kyoto Forestry Association called for the Green Party to back the legislation so the thousands of New Zealanders who invested their own savings to plant trees in the 1990s can secure the estimated NZ$1.6 billion of carbon credits promised to them by all parties in Parliament. 

KFA spokesman Roger Dickie said in a statement that the KFA agreed with the Greens that there were serious flaws in the Bill but that the provisions for post-1989 forestry would provide new confidence and investment to plant new forests. 

“Getting tree planting underway again is the most important contribution New Zealand can make to reducing the world’s net carbon emissions and to reduce New Zealand’s billion-dollar Kyoto deficit. 

“There is an urgent need for government to recreate investor confidence to drive new planting, as getting trees in the ground will hugely benefit New Zealand's carbon accounts in Kyoto’s post-2012 era, all at nil cost to the taxpayer,” Dickie said.