NZ in major emissions initiative

Tim Groser says New Zealand will be the centre responsible for livestock. Photo / Richard Robinson

New Zealand is poised to take the lead in launching a new research-based global alliance to reduce agricultural emissions.

Cabinet minister Tim Groser, who is in charge of New Zealand's international trade and climate change negotiations, said the move would be a "major foreign policy initiative by New Zealand".

The Groser-led initiative will be up for discussion during meetings with Australasian politicians, senior business people and officials in Sydney over the next two days.

He told the Business Herald the proposal entailed a globally co-ordinated research effort on how to mitigate agricultural emissions.

"New Zealand will be the centre responsible for livestock, another country will have responsibility for research on soil sequestration and another on co-ordinating methane emissions from rice fields.

"In the past, research used to be a dirty word," said Groser. "It was thought to be the Bush Administration's codeword for saying 'to hell with this climate change stuff, we'll just pass it off to the boffins'.

"But everyone now realises if we don't get research breakthroughs we're stuffed."

The New Zealand move follows in the wake of Australia's initiative to invest A$100 million ($123 million) in kicking off a new global carbon capture and storage unit. New Zealand is contributing $6 million.

"No one can delude themselves we can get to the goal of stabilising at around 450 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalents by 2050 without massive research breakthroughs," said Groser.

Both Groser and Australia's Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, have been in close collaboration during talks leading up to the Copenhagen meeting on climate change. They are now expected to start the "long slow process" of aligning the two Australasian regimes.

The climate change research agenda is not the only area in which the two countries are co-operating.

Groser said he and Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean expected an accord struck by trade ministers meeting in Bangkok last weekend would ultimately pave the way for an Asian free trade and investment area.

He said that for 25 years New Zealand and Australia had worried they might be locked out of the Asian integration process.

But the 10-strong Asean group of South-east Asian nations rejected a bid by China to restrict the new free trade area to East Asia - in effect, Asean plus Japan, China and Korea. Asean instead embraced the alternative proposal to add New Zealand, Australia and India into the mix.

The proposal still has to be endorsed by political leaders at the October East Asia Summit.

"We didn't want to fall out of the bus," said Groser. "But we scored huge help from our Asean friends who finally decided they wanted Australia, New Zealand and India involved."SEE ALSO

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