Farmers will pay their way on emissions eventually, Climate Change Minister says

The government is defending not making the agriculture sector pay for a new agri-tech centre, saying the technology still needs to be rolled out to farms.

Ministers announced the $2.9 billion investment on curbing emissions on Monday, labelling it the most significant event in the country's climate action history.

However, environmentalists have criticised the lack of focus on the agriculture sector - the country's number one emitter.

Nearly $340 million has also been set aside for a new agri-tech centre to investigate new tools to cut emissions on farms.

Farmers, though, are exempt from the Emissions Trading Scheme until 2025 and so have not paid a cent into the pot of money funding the research.

Climate Change Minister James Shaw said the challenge is that some of the technology has not yet been rolled out onto farms. Some of the centre's initiatives will involve technology and science while others will help farmers to change their business models.

The government had committed in its first term to spending five years to building a system that reduced greenhouse gases on farms although he argued at the time for a shorter timeframe.

Shaw added that the Emission Trading Scheme was not well designed for agricultural businesses.

Ralph Sims, emeritus professor of sustainable energy and climate mitigation at Massey University, has predicted that emissions will continue to rise for some time yet despite the government's initiatives.

Shaw disagreed, saying that the point of the plan was that gross emissions would start falling in the first emissions budget period which continued from now through to 2025 and then would accelerate from 2026.

"So the reductions would become steeper in each of the three emissions budgets. But one of the disputes that exist still is how we account for emissions, so it's possible that is what Ralph is talking about."

Former Green MP Catherine Delahunty said the government was too scared of losing next year's election to make real change in the agricultural sector.

Shaw responded that any government had to be aware of looming elections and needed to be aware of the social licence it operated under.

"Things have shifted very very rapidly ... there is a hunger for the government to move faster on a lot of these commitments than we would have had even 12 months ago."

Professor Sims said he would "put money on New Zealand's gross emissions continuing to rise for some years yet".

He said both he and Minister Shaw were right in their claims "but over a different time period".

The aim over the next three years is to reduce the country's emissions of about 80 million tonnes per year down to an average of 72m tonnes a year.

"But it's still no evident way of doing that."

Sims told Morning Report that the government's plan contained many positives but would take a long time to have an impact.

Assistance to install solar panels on the roofs of new houses and electric charging units for vehicles could have been included.

Missed opportunities included not introducing bans on new coal exploration, new gas connections or importations of new petrol or diesel vehicles by a stated deadline.

Cabinet would need to make some rapid decisions, he said.

Some of the initiatives that have been included have been discussed for years so it was disappointing that "it's the immediate action now that's missing".

World-leading initiative for farmers

Dairy NZ chief executive Dr Tim Mackle said farmers were looking to pay for their emissions through the plan they are working on for their sector.

It is due to be presented to the government early next month.

"That is our commitment to emissions reduction - to measure and to price and to manage emissions."

Consultation within the farming sector suggested farmers agreed that they needed to be responsible for the emissions produced on farms.

"We've got a world-first opportunity in front of us to put our own ag emissions plan in place and one that I think will help everybody."

One of the key messages to farmers is that international customers are looking at how food is being produced. They want to see evidence of zero emissions and the sector needs to respond which it is already doing, Mackle said.

Farmers were already producing low carbon food but want to get better.

"That's why this R&D announcement is so key for us because it allows us to get on and accelerate the development of technology and tools to reduce particularly methane and nitrous oxide in a New Zealand pastoral farming context so that's a great thing."

Dairy produces around half of the country's methane emissions, Mackle said, and that had to be balanced against estimated export receipts of $21 billion by the end of next month. That constituted about a third of the country's current export revenue.

Mackle is adamant results can be achieved without reducing cow numbers.

Methane has a warming impact but it is not as great as CO2 - 60 percent of methane has gone after about 12 years while CO2 will remain in the atmosphere for around 1000 years, he said.

Farmer opposed to emissions levy

Taranaki farmer Ted Gane said the agri-tech centre announcement was "a surprise" and "looks OK".

He is opposed to farmers being billed for their agricultural emissions, telling Morning Report that methane gas emitted by cows is a short-lived gas.

"There is a whole skewed system that has painted us as laggards in the system and somehow we're the great polluters of the planets and blah blah blah which is actually refuted by a lot of scientific information out there but is never reported by the mainstream media as being such. It's always reported that we're the bad guys."

Asked how farmers were going to respond to demands from overseas markets for products that were zero emissions, he said farmers had been taking environmental initiatives for 20-30 years.

With the industry working on its own plan to charge farmers for their emissions, and the National Party agreeing to back it, Gane said he remained opposed to any new form of taxes.