The cost of the credits New Zealand businesses have to buy to offset carbon emissions is skyrocketing. The price of a unit has more than doubled in the past year and is up from just $2 a tonne to nearly $19 in the past five years.
The price spike follows Government moves to tighten the rules which previously allowed local businesses to buy cheaper foreign carbon credits and offered other concessions which effectively allowed a buy-one-get-one-free deal.
But further increases in the cost of carbon were inevitable in the wake of the Paris Agreement signed late last year, New Zealand Herald economics columnist Brian Fallow told The Economy Hub today.
New Zealand has signed up to new targets which commit it to reducing greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 11 per cent below 1990 levels by 2030.
Based on our current emissions track New Zealand would have another 200 million or so tonnes of carbon it had to deal with, Fallow said.