Photo: 123RF
The government's focus on planting pine trees to solve climate change will only push costs onto remote communities and avoid solving the real problem: fossil fuels, campaigners say.
The government's draft Emissions Reduction Plan contains little in the way of spending on reducing emissions, preferring to go for what the government says is the more affordable option of offsetting carbon emissions with low-cost trees.
Polluters can buy unlimited quantities of pine-based carbon credits under the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), and the government intends to lean almost exclusively on the ETS to meet climate targets - with no limit on how much pollution can be offset, versus cut at the source.
The draft plan also promises to explore technological solutions like storing carbon dioxide in underground reservoirs, as well as nature-based options such as absorbing carbon by re-wetting peatlands.
"You can't plant your way out of this problem," said WWF's Kayla Kingdon-Bebb.
"It's really disappointing that this plan has pivoted so hard away from gross emissions reduction. It's really just kicking the can down the road in a very unhelpful way.
"We only have so much land in New Zealand that's suitable for planting, and there's a reason that widespread pine plantation has been controversial.
"If we're going to be pursuing a programme of aggressive afforestation, it needs to be native afforestation."
In May, the OECD's economic survey said New Zealand was unique in allowing unlimited tree planting to meet its climate goals, instead of slowing emissions.
The OECD report echoed an earlier warning from the Climate Change Commission that under current government policies, companies may have no incentive to address the root cause of climate change, because planting pine will often be cheaper.
When suitable land for trees runs out, it may be hard to keep net emissions in check and comply with carbon targets because sectors such as industry and transport will not have tackled their use of fossil fuels, the commission warned.
The draft plan acknowledged risks from relying on forestry, for example fires burning trees down, but comes down on the side of what it calls the 'low cost' option of using exotic trees (pine trees) rather than focussing more money or effort on cutting sources of fossil fuel emissions.
To assuage the concerns of farmers and others about pine trees taking over productive food-growing land, the government was looking at a three-year moratorium on converting the most productive land classes (classes 1-5) out of farmland and into forestry, and restricting conversions of land class 6 to 15,000 hectares per year. There would be no limit on converting land class 7, the least productive category, into pine forest.
However, East Coast environmental campaigner Manu Caddie said planting on erosion-prone, class 7 land is the type that causes the most damage in his region of Tai Rāwhiti.
Manu Caddie. Photo: Supplied
He said remote communities will pay the cost of the supposedly "low cost" solution - and the government does not seem interested in finding ways to reduce the damage, because of its support of forestry.
"We had the ministerial inquiry into land use in the region last year. The previous government said they'd respond by Christmas, they didn't make it to Christmas and we've had nothing since," he said.
"When they talk about low-cost reduction policy, that suggests they are really thinking about low cost to industry, maybe some taxpayers, they are certainly not thinking about all costs to communities that bear the brunt of these policies that incentivise pines being planted on inappropriate slopes, let alone the wider environment... if we're going to talk about 'low cost' we need to talk about all cost, not just cost to certain interest groups."
Caddie and Kingdon-Bebb each praised parts of the draft plan talking about nature-based solutions to climate change and promising to investigate planting native forests on Crown land.
However, they questioned where the money would come from, unless the government established financial incentives for boosting biodiversity.
The government was relying on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) to reduce the climate impact of energy and transport in New Zealand, saying it was inefficient to interfere with the carbon market by adding other policies or subsidies.
Forest owners can sell unlimited carbon credits to polluters under the scheme, and, without, restrictions, planting tends to gravitate to pine trees, because they grow quickly and earn carbon credits faster than native forests.
Analysis released with the government's draft plan said under current ETS settings, the carbon price may end up matching the cheapest price for planting pines from the 2030s. The government has ruled out any major changes to the scheme.
However, without changes, the analysis also showed New Zealand will not be on track to reach net zero for long-lived gases (carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide) by 2050, as required by the Zero Carbon Act.
That was partly because nitrous oxide (a farming gas) was not covered by the ETS or any pricing mechanism to encourage reductions. It was also because the ETS includes provision of millions of tonnes of free carbon credits to major polluters such as NZ Steel, Rio Tinto, Methanex and others, which will still be being given out in 2050, barring government policy changes.
