Kyoto makes sense, farmers told

Farmers calling for the Government to hold off on its planned ratification of the Kyoto Protocol this year have been told by Energy Minister Pete Hodgson the costs of inaction would start out "huge".

And because global warming was a cumulative effect of greenhouse gas emissions, the problem would get bigger the longer it was left.

He told the North Canterbury Federated Farmers annual conference in Christchurch yesterday that they should get behind Government policy of ratifying the protocol, because it was the right thing to do and made economic sense.

He asked the farmers to think about aspects of global warming that did not fit easily into a cost-benefit spreadsheet.

"Consider what New Zealand's clean environmental reputation is worth to you, as food producers, in sophisticated consumer markets such as Europe," he said.

Mr Hodgson asked what New Zealand's stable, equable, wet, mid-latitude climate was worth to farmers.

While there might be some initial benefits to agriculture from a warmer climate, floods and droughts were expected to become more frequent and extreme, and biosecurity was likely to come under increasing pressure.

Mr Hodgson said the Government's preferred policy was for the agricultural sector to take responsibility, through research, to reduce methane emissions from animals.

"We expect your sector to fund most of this research, not only because you must take some responsibility for your industry's emissions, but because any productivity increases from methane reductions are likely to benefit you directly."

The Government retained the option of a research levy. But because methane was waste the potential productivity gains were exciting.

There were likely to be significant business opportunities in selling New Zealand solutions to the world.

But the Federated Farmers branch president Pam Richardson said the Government's commitment to Kyoto posed a potential threat to farmers who already faced significant competition from heavily subsidised agricultural trading nations.

"I am concerned that if further costs are imposed on New Zealand farmers and the transport sector, then competing on the world stage will be much more difficult," she said.

Methane and nitrous oxide from agriculture form more than half of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions; a unique situation among developed nations.

The Government has made farmers exempt from paying for these emissions, as long as their sector spends $20 million a year on research to reduce livestock methane emissions.

Federated Farmers national policy analyst Jacob Haronga said New Zealand was the only developed country looking for a commitment from its agricultural sector.

"We need to protect the competitive advantage we enjoy in export production."

- NZPA

nzherald.co.nz/climate

Related links

nzherald.co.nz/environment