By Lucy Craymer
WELLINGTON (Reuters) – The New Zealand government on Tuesday confirmed it plans to price agricultural long-lived gases and biogenic methane separately when agricultural emissions are priced from 2025.
The government on Tuesday released its proposed plan on agricultural emissions pricing, which when introduced will make New Zealand, a large agricultural exporter, the first country to have farmers pay for emissions from livestock.
New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern said in a statement the proposal aims to give New Zealand farmers control over their farming system, providing the ability to reduce costs through revenue raised from the system being recycled back to farmers. One of the country’s biggest sources of greenhouse gases is belching sheep and cattle.
The released consultation document proposes that prices for long-lived gases such as carbon dioxide be set annually and be based on domestic emission prices for other sectors while biogenic methane levy price would have a unique price based on progress toward domestic methane targets.
It added farmers and growers will have to provide information including the size of their farm and their nitrogen use to determine their nitrogen bill.
The proposal now goes to consultation and will need to be passed by government before being put into force.
(Reporting by Lucy Craymer; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
