A landmark bill that would set a target of zero carbon emissions for New Zealand by 2050 has been tabled in the New Zealand parliament.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern yesterday said that the bill, which would introduce targets for carbon and biogenic methane emissions, and would establish an independent climate change commission, was aimed at addressing the “long-term challenge of climate change.”
While parts of the bill have cross-party support, targets for the reduction of methane in the agricultural sector have been a source of dispute. The opposition National Party says they are too high and environmentalists want the country to aim for net-zero emissions.
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The bill was also criticized by Greenpeace for having no way of enforcing its targets.
“What we’ve got here is a reasonably ambitious piece of legislation that’s then had the teeth ripped out of it. There’s bark, but there’s no bite,” Greenpeace New Zealand executive director Russel Norman said.
New Zealand Minister for Climate Change James Shaw told parliament that he hoped the bill would become law by the end of the year.
Shaw said the government had been impacted by the sight of tens of thousand of New Zealand students who went on strike in March to protest lack of action on climate change.
“We hear them,” Shaw said. “The zero carbon bill outlines our plan to safeguard the future that those school students will inherit. The critical thing is to do everything we can over the next 30 years to limit global warming to no more than 1.5oC and the zero carbon bill makes that a legally binding objective.”
As well as cutting carbon dioxide emissions, which Shaw called “the most important thing we need to tackle,” the bill also focuses on the reduction of methane from the agricultural sector, with a target for a 10 percent reduction in biological methane by 2030 and a provisional reduction of between 24 and 47 percent by 2050 — a range that will be subject to review by the independent climate change commission.
“Agriculture is incredibly important to New Zealand, but it also needs to be part of the solution,” Shaw said.
National Party leader Simon Bridges said that while his party was committed to a bipartisan approach to combating climate change, and welcomed the establishment of an advisory climate change commission and the target of zero carbon emissions, the party had “serious reservations” about the rate of methane reductions.
”We are not convinced that the proposed 24 to 47 percent reduction for methane meets our test in terms of science, economic impact or global response,” Bridges said.
“New Zealand has been a global leader in sustainable agricultural production. For this leadership to be enhanced the sector must continue to embrace change, but this target goes beyond credible scientific recommendations,” he said.
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