Climate Change Response (2050 Target and Other Matters) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Climate Change Response (2050 Target and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

This bill amends the Climate Change Response Act 2002 to update New Zealand’s biogenic methane targets and make other changes to ensure our climate legislation remains fit for purpose. The Government’s commitments are clear. We need targets that reflect our national economic context, continue New Zealand’s contribution to international commitments, and are achievable in practice. The changes before us today provide clarity and confidence to the agricultural sector and to our wider economy.

This bill did not go through the select committee process. That said, the decisions reflected here have not been made without due consideration. They draw on months of expert technical advice, sector engagement, and independent review. I particularly recognise the rigorous input from the independent Methane Review Panel, the Climate Change Commission, and the dedicated teams across the Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry for Primary Industries who have ensured that this legislation is robust and evidence based.

This bill does a number of things. Firstly, it updates the biogenic methane target to a range of 14 to 24 percent below 2017 levels by 2050. This responds to concerns that the previous target was unrealistic and economically disruptive. It legislates a review of the methane target in 2040 so that the target will continue to reflect the latest science and international developments. It defers setting the fourth emissions budget until 31 December 2027. This will allow time for updated advice from the Climate Change Commission that aligns with the updated biogenic methane target. It requires consideration of domestic food production when advising on and setting emissions budgets, recognising, importantly, the primary sector’s importance to our economy and our communities. Finally, it removes the requirement for the emissions trading scheme (ETS) settings to accord with New Zealand’s nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement. This is appropriate, as the New Zealand ETS is a domestic instrument and should be focused on achieving our domestic targets and budgets.

Agriculture is the backbone of our economy; it contributes over 80 percent of our exports and supports our rural communities across this country. We cannot afford blunt instruments that undermine our agricultural productivity. The bill ensures that our climate targets are achievable, and our approach to emissions reduction are fair and evidence based. Farmers have been clear: they need targets that are realistic and provide certainty about what is expected from them. The previous methane target created economic uncertainty across rural New Zealand. By grounding our targets in science and practicality, we ensure that climate policy supports a productive and resilient economy. New Zealand’s food and fibre producers are world leaders in carbon-efficient production, and this bill reflects our belief that a thriving climate and a thriving economy go hand in hand.

Our international commitments remain unchanged. New Zealand continues to take its obligations under the Paris Agreement seriously, and this bill reinforces our continued contribution to the global effort on climate change.

Technology will play a vital role in meeting these targets. Within the next decade, we expect methane reduction tools to be widely available. The Government’s investing significant money to accelerate innovation and adoption of technologies to reduce on-farm emissions. Over the next decade, we anticipate the wider roll-out of efficient and scientifically proven methane reduction technologies across New Zealand farming systems. These tools will enable us to achieve the updated target, while strengthening the competitiveness and value of our export and agricultural sector. New Zealand farmers are amongst the most carbon-efficient producers globally, and with the right support and the right Government, they will continue to lead in international markets.

This bill is about balance between environmental responsibility and economic resilience. We want to support our farmers. We want to avoid punitive measures. We want to work together to deliver practical and sustainable solutions. Listening to the Opposition’s contributions today, it is clear that they do not agree with any of those points, and it is very clear now, for the rural sector of New Zealand, that this side of the House supports our rural sector.

As the House moves into the committee stage, I welcome productive discussions—I don’t think too much is going to be necessary, because we’ve been very descriptive in the lead-up to this process. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Where was the select committee stage? Well, under the rules of urgency, we are not having a select committee stage. It’s a real shame. Nicole McKee, a Minister in that Government, said yesterday, “More voices make better law.” There are no more voices in this debate.

I turn to the regulatory impact statement prepared by the Minister’s own officials. In that regulatory impact statement, it discusses the need for consultation, and it reflects on the zero carbon bill. It says that there was extensive consultation on setting the gas targets in the zero carbon bill. There was a large number of submissions to the process. There was a full select committee process. In terms of updating the 2050 target, the regulatory impact statement notes that there’s been targeted consultation and there has been some extra research. Then it says that normal legislative processes provide opportunity for public submissions and engagement as part of the select committee process. What select committee process?

The Minister has said that we don’t need to have an extended committee stage. That is so much not the case, because it has to substitute now for the select committee process, and we do need to go into some of those questions. At the core of this reset target for methane is the concept of no additional warming, and it’s a disputed concept. In other countries, it’s sometimes called carbon neutrality. It’s a known concept, and, interestingly enough, it is a concept that is pushed by countries with large agricultural sectors. The Minister talks of the science that was done to set this methane range, and, in fact, the Minister set up his own independent Methane Review Panel, despite having a whole body of experts sitting in the Climate Change Commission. It’s always a bit of a red flag when someone sets up their own independent panel.

The question that was asked was a very specific question that said if we want no additional warming, what kind of methane target should we have? It assumed that no additional warming was an appropriate goal in the first place. Yes, those were highly qualified scientists working on that methane review, but they were asked to answer a very particular question, and it was a particular question that assumed that no additional warming was an appropriate metric. Is it an appropriate metric? Straightforwardly, no. No, it is not, and here’s why.

It takes a little bit to understand this, because it just seems so plausible in the first place, but in reality, it is not. What that no additional warming metric puts into place is that it grandfathers existing levels of emissions and says that they are OK. Any decrease from that existing level is good; any increase to that existing level is bad. But it says that the warming that occurs to date, the level of warming from the emissions at this level, is appropriate and acceptable.

Let’s go for an example here to help people to understand why this is a bad approach. What I want you to imagine is a factory, and let’s say it’s pouring maybe 1,000 litres of toxic waste into a local stream every year. Now, we’d all think that was a bad thing, and we’d think that if they reduced that level of toxic waste a bit, say going from 1,000 litres to 900 litres, that would be a good thing, because it was a reduction. It’s a big factory, it’s been going a long time, it’s well established, it’s got its levels of waste already worked in there, and because it gets that reduction, it’s seen as doing something good, and that’s acceptable—but you’ve baked in the 900 level.

Let’s now imagine another factory starts up. There’s a start-up. There’s someone who needs to get going, and they pour 100 litres of toxic waste into the stream as a byproduct of what they’re doing, and that is categorically seen as a bad thing. Even though they are producing much less pollution than the first factory, they are bad because that’s an increase on the first factory, the one that has 900 litres of waste going in every year—that is seen as a good thing, because it’s come down and they’re permitted to carry on.

Now, let’s translate that to what that means in terms of agriculture. We are—[Interruption]. Stop with the juvenile undergraduate comments, David. It’s not just a hypothetical example. Let’s think about our major exports. Let’s think about the way we export milk powder to the world. We are a large producer of milk powder. We have one of the biggest dairy companies—Fonterra—in the world. It’s one of our largest exports. It would fall into the notion of a multinational under our tax laws and so on. Fonterra produces milk powder, and we do it at a significant cost in methane. What we are saying is that if we do not increase that methane and, in fact, decrease it a little, that’s a good thing as we export to the world.

But, then, imagine a much less rich country than New Zealand. Imagine a country that is trying to build up its own dairy industry. Imagine a poor country, say somewhere in Africa or somewhere in the Pacific, that is trying to develop its own dairy industry. Because it was developing its own onshore dairy industry, it will start producing methane emissions, and that would be seen as a bad thing, because it would have no grandparented-in emissions. This no additional warming is grossly unfair, because it bakes in the existing level of warming produced by methane and says that’s OK. It says it’s OK.

It means that over time, the inequity across the world is going to be cemented in. Instead of helping developing nations, we are going to penalise them and we’re going to accept for ourselves just keeping on with that we’re doing already. That is what no additional warming does, and that is why this side of the House rejects it. We actually need to do better. We need to ensure that if a global problem is facing the world, as a rich nation, we do our bit. No additional warming means we do not do our bit. No additional warming means we rely on the pollution we have already caused. No additional warming cements in the existing warming we cause. It is a false metric to use.

It is the metric that has been rejected in open letters by scientists, the general body of scientific opinion, across the world. It’s only a small group of people who answer a very specific question who think it is acceptable to go down that route. I want the members on the other side of the House to take this seriously. That Government is making a very political choice to bake in no additional warming. It is actually baked into the words of this bill. It is a false metric and it is a metric that enables us to do nothing. That is unacceptable, and that is why the Labour Party is rejecting this bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I will strive to deliver a calmer, more meandering speech for my second reading, as befits the tone of second reading speeches. I’ll start by doing the obligatory Opposition deploring of urgency and then I’ll move on to incorporating the viewpoints of stakeholders, because we haven’t had a chance to have select committee, so I’ll be reading some of the stakeholder submissions that were reactions to when the Government announced the outcome of the methane target review. Then I’ll get into a little bit of myth-busting with whatever time I have left.

But I wanted to, first, compliment the previous speaker, Dr Deborah Russell, for her excellent explanation on why the principle of no additional warming was not the correct thing. I think her calm and good explanation is a really good example of why it’s not a good thing.

I do want to spend a little bit of time, as I’ve put a little bit of a road mark on, on questioning the need for urgency on this bill, because it does change the target, and it changes the target for the 2050 target, so we’ve got a little bit of a way to go to get there, so why change the target under urgency? Look, it does make some changes to some urgent stuff. It changes the fourth emissions reduction plan deadline from 2025 to 2027. I can understand why that may have needed to be done under urgency, but I argue to you that the actual cost of changing the methane target under urgency without giving a chance for any stakeholder input, and what that does to the idea of cross-party consensus that we used to have in this country, and the level of disruption that will cause to communities as Governments chop and change emissions targets, really disproportionately outweighs any conceivable benefit that they might have gained from it.

It’s especially baffling when you consider the background context of this, because I had a chance to, as I alluded to in my first-reading speech, look through the climate plans of the various coalition parties and the coalition agreements as well, and not a single coalition agreement actually mentioned—look, I’ll concede that the, I think, ACT-National coalition agreement did say that there was going to be a review of the methane target, but a review was all that was committed to. Likewise, with the National Party’s climate commitments coming into the 2023 election, all that was committed to was a review, so, actually, National didn’t come into the election promising to change the target. If anything, they committed to New Zealand’s target, so it’s really baffling why they chose to do this under urgency, when the change of the target wasn’t mentioned in the coalition agreement or mentioned in the pre-election commitment of the primary governing party.

I want to move on now to incorporating the views of the stakeholders. I think this is really important, because, normally, there would be a chance for stakeholders to have input and actually provide feedback on the contents of this legislation. I am going to read, because I don’t want to get the viewpoints of the people that I’m quoting from wrong. I’m quoting from something that Professor James Renwick, who was the inaugural Climate Change Commissioner from 2019 to 2024, said: “The Government’s announcement on methane emissions reductions represents a major step backwards in ambition and in climate action. The methane reductions mandated under the Zero Carbon act called for 24-47% reductions by 2050, in line with the science of the IPCC report on 1.5°C of warming. The revised emissions reductions are 14-24% by 2050, so the top of the new range is below the bottom of the old range.

“The idea of ‘no additional warming’ ”—and that is one of the key principles behind this—“seems to have won today, in terms of scientific advice to the Government. This approach goes easy on the agriculture sector and in no way does it represent our ‘highest possible ambition’ as laid out in Article 4 of the Paris Agreement, to which New Zealand is a signatory. Our trading partners are unlikely to smile on this reduction in ambition.

“The climate is currently changing rapidly and we need to be doing all we can to slow the warming and avoid catastrophic impacts from extremes and from tipping points crossed. Yes, carbon dioxide emissions … are the number one target, and we must get to zero as soon as possible. But methane emissions are the next most important, and emissions reductions there would quickly translate into reductions in atmospheric concentrations (because of the short lifetime of methane in the atmosphere), providing a cooling effect in the short-medium term. To pull our weight internationally under the Paris Agreement, New Zealand should still be aiming for the reductions set as law in the Zero Carbon Act, not these watered-down targets.

“This week, a major international conference on climate change adaptation is taking place in Christchurch. We can currently adapt to climate change pressures, in most places, most of the time. Every tenth of a degree of warming makes that adaptation harder, and at some point we will no longer be able to adapt. There is real urgency around reducing emissions of all greenhouse gases, in every sector and every country. This can be achieved by working as hard as we can across the board. The new methane targets increase the risk of unmanageable consequences from climate change.”

I think that’s something that’s really important to reflect on, and I want to reflect on one of the things that he said in his letter, in that our international partners are unlikely to smile at our change in targets. I think this is, actually, something the Government realises, because in the regulatory impact statement for this bill—I’ll just pull it up—they actually redacted the sections to do with the trade implications of the changes and the possible costs that might be incurred to New Zealand and the possible risks that our various industries—not only the agricultural industry but across the board that rely on that green premium. They redacted paragraphs 126 to 128 that talk about the risks of the change, but they forgot to redact a paragraph that referred to these risks: paragraph 145.

That means that there are risks in this that they’re kind of acknowledging by forgetting to redact paragraph 145. I know for a fact from an Official Information Act (OIA) request that I’ve gotten back from either New Zealand Trade and Enterprise or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade that our trade partners have actually warned us against the change in the methane pledge. This was something that was raised in an email, something that was raised in a meeting, and something that was discussed in a phone call to officials in New Zealand from our trade partners—that the nationally determined contribution is actually mentioned under the New Zealand - UK Free Trade Agreement and the New Zealand - European Union Free Trade Agreement.

It’s a shame, because the OIA request that I got back was so heavily redacted that it didn’t end up saying anything. It just said that it was raised in the call, but they declined to release the notes that they took of the phone call—the notes they took of the meeting. They even declined to release the actual email; they just provided a summary of the email, in which the trade risk was raised.

It’s really interesting, because there’s been a rhetoric that this Government is going to achieve economic prosperity for New Zealanders. I mean, if you look at the GDP figures, it’s anything but that. There’s this rhetoric that the Governments of the centre-right are the adults on the economy, the ones who are going to create economic prosperity. But what this bill shows is that not only are they wilfully disregarding evidence but they’re actually hiding the evidence so that we can’t discuss the full implications of this change—the cost and possible benefits.

In conclusion, we really do not support this bill, and we look forward to changing it as soon as we can.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m taking this call on behalf of the ACT Party to support the Climate Change Response (2050 Target and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. I want to acknowledge the Minister in charge, Hon Simon Watts, for this bill, because he has already described what this bill intends to do. I also want to acknowledge my ACT Party colleague Hon Andrew Hoggard, who spoke in the first reading of this bill and provided a really good background to this bill and why this bill is necessary. He was speaking from his own experience, as well, as a farmer.

I will say this: that farming is not just a sector on the list of other sectors; it is, actually, the foundation of our economy. We are a very, very proud food-producing nation. The food that we produce is really high quality. On this side, we back our farmers and we know we have to back our farmers based on evidence. From my circles talking to community farmers, I know that our farmers do everything possible to support the environment and they do it in a very, very responsible manner. They produce really efficiently. We also know that they adopt technology as soon as it becomes available. We cannot expect them to apply something that is not available, so we have to be realistic, as well.

We all know that we want more and more money going into the health sector, more and more money going into education, more and more money going into our welfare sector, but that money needs to come from somewhere. Our sector supports that—brings that revenue that we can invest in so many sectors. Also, if our economy’s doing well, we can put more resources towards climate change, as well. Climate change cannot happen in isolation. We need to support our economy so that we can put more measures in place to tackle climate change.

On this side, we understand how the economy works, but on the other side, listening to those speeches, we can clearly see that they don’t understand how the economy works. For them, I know that it’s just about setting up a printing machine in the background. They will start printing money. They think you can just put a printing machine in the background and start printing money. Can I ask those members to reflect on this—that just setting up a printing machine and starting to print something also involves a carbon footprint. I ask those members to reflect on that, as well.

To finish, I would say on this side, we back farmers. We want to see that our targets are realistic, they are balanced, and they are grounded in economic reality. I support the bill. Thank you.

New Zealand First continues to support the bill. Following up from Parmjeet Parmar, not only do the Opposition not understand the economy but they actually don’t understand the science here, either. With respect, you’re boxing at the wrong target. I absolutely respect that you’re trying to do the best for the planet, but we’re talking about biogenic methane, which is in a closed biological cycle. We’re not talking about the emissions from fossil fuels.

Wasn’t it instructive to hear Deborah Russell’s kind of convoluted anecdote about how this all works and actually admitting that she wanted New Zealand emissions to come down so African emissions could go up? New Zealand first will stand, absolutely, behind New Zealand farmers. We’re not taking a second thought to trying to stimulate other agricultural systems, although we are going to be part of the solution at a global problem—not at a global level, but by the money we’re putting into innovation: $400 million we’re investing, and that technology is coming along pretty quickly now.

There are, you know, boluses, vaccines in development. I think there’s about 10 or a dozen now that AgriZero have invested in. We know, for example, that we’ve managed to isolate genetics that—just naturally animals that emit less methane, which appear to be more efficient, because they’re utilising more of that energy for growth into meat and milk or wool. That could be easily incorporated through our systems and particularly in our dairy industry, where very few bulls come through LIC or Ambreed; it’s a very focused system in terms of the genetics they use.

There are all sorts of solutions coming along, and those solutions can be disseminated out to the world. Actually, it’s a big economic opportunity for New Zealand, this research and development that we’re doing to actually help those African farmers. But in the meantime, we are not going to shut New Zealand farms down. Sorry, we are just not going to do it.

Also, just the efficiency of our farmers. I just want to reflect my own anecdote of meeting an international professor at Lincoln University, telling me that he could not find anywhere in the world to send his agricultural students for pastoral farming management. He said there is nowhere in the world that can compete that he could send them where they would actually learn at a farming systems level how to do it any better than what they do here. He said—his direct quote was—“New Zealand pastoral farming systems are akin to magic.” Most of the comparative countries have got these vast industrial-scale grain-fed systems, which, you know, they’re not in those closed biological systems like we are here in our grass-fed systems.

We are confident in the science that we put up. It was a reputable panel. New Zealand First—as I said, we would have gone further; we would have just gone for the 14 percent. We see absolutely no reason to put our farmers out of business whilst Russia and China and the United States continue to spew out vast quantities of carbon emissions. That’s New Zealand First’s position. It has not changed at all since the first reading, and we continue to support the bill.

E te Pīka, tēnā koe. It’s deeply disturbing that we’re into the second reading of this bill without any chance to have a robust debate about it, and I agree—where is the select committee stage? Public consultation—gone. The Climate Change Commission consulting with Māori—gone. Community input into emissions budgets—gone. Kāwana, e mataku ana koe i te aha?

[Government, what are you afraid of?]

This Government has decided that climate decisions are too technical for the public, too complex for iwi, and too distracting for democracy. Apparently, only the Minister knows best—a Minister who thinks weakening the methane target counts as climate leadership; a Minister whose idea of climate strategy is “We’ll sort something out by 2050”. This isn’t efficiency; it is authoritarian convenience. This bill should be strengthening our climate framework. Instead, it guts it, hollows it, and hands the pen to polluters. It removes the requirement that emissions trading scheme (ETS) unit settings must accord with our Paris Agreement targets. Put simply, we are no longer required to follow the international commitments that we promised the world. Shame!

This is the coalition rewriting the rules because the science is inconvenient, and because Matua Shane “Fossil Fuels” Jones wants to turn Aotearoa into the Dubai of the South Pacific minus the money, minus the plan, and minus the future. Then, they’re moving ETS settings from annual to biannual reviews, meaning fewer checkpoints, fewer corrections, and fewer chances to stop mistakes before they blow the budget and blow our planet. This is “set and forget” climate policy, except it’s not forgetting; it’s wilful negligence. This bill strips the Climate Change Commission of its role to advise on emissions reduction plans. Why? Because the Minister doesn’t like being told he’s wrong, and the commission keeps making the cardinal sin of using science. This Government’s attitude is very clear: if the experts disagree with you, silence them. If the evidence embarrasses you, bury it. If the science warns you, ignore it.

Every timeline in the Climate Change Response Act has been pushed out, like a can being kicked down the road. The Government says it’s streamlining, but let’s be honest, they’re stalling—stalling for agriculture, stalling for oil and gas, and stalling for mates who don’t want to cut emissions because it might affect their profit margin this quarter. Government agencies were supposed to be carbon neutral by 2025. “Too hard”, they say, “too soon, too ambitious”. What does this Government do? It pushes it to 2050, the same deadline as everyone else. The truth is it wasn’t too hard; it was too inconvenient, because it required leadership. Leadership is something this Government has outsourced to the fossil fuel industry.

I want to close with some truth about Matua Shane, who, I would say, is the unofficial “Minister of Emissions”. Matua Shane Jones has become that—he wants mines, he wants drilling, he wants economic growth, but only the kind that melts ice caps and floods our marae. He talks about “resource sovereignty”, but what he really means is extracting everything until Tangaroa starts invoicing us directly. If this bill had a mascot, it would be Matua Shane Jones riding a diesel bulldozer through a wetland yelling—what did you just yell? “Progress!” It sounds funny, but not when his own kuia are weeping, not when the cousins can’t collect kaimoana, not when our mokopuna are deprived of their pātaka kai, or a place to swim, because it’s filthy, and his own hapū continue to scream, “Whakamutua atu!” [“Cut it out!”]

Te Pāti Māori will not stand by any Government that gambles the lives of our people, diminishes Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and distinguishes tino rangatiratanga, all while they mock science, they mock our whanaunga across Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa, and they mock the future of our mokopuna—tino kore nei [absolutely no chance]. It goes without saying that Te Pāti Māori strongly opposes this bill, and we do not commend it to the House. Ka whawhai tonu mātou, āke, ake, ake!

Thank you, Madam Speaker. This bill has been rushed upon us like a slash-laden flash flood on the Esk Valley. Fred Dagg—

Grant McCallum: How long did it take you to come up with that one?

STEVE ABEL: It was the first thing that came to my mind. John Clarke, the creator of the great Fred Dagg, said that recognising a problem and doing nothing about it has the same effect as not noticing the problem in the first place. That is a charitable take on this Government’s climate strategy, because worse than saying that they believe in climate change and doing nothing about it is saying that they believe in climate change and then doing all the things that make it worse. Saying that the bald, hard science of climate change—balder than I am—is climate catastrophising betrays a deep disdain for the fact of the existential threat.

No nation is an island unto itself. We are all a part of the whole planet, and we are all a part of that community of humanity who faces the existential challenge of climate change. We should have a sense of responsibility and duty to do our bit, however little that bit may be. Just because we’re small doesn’t mean we shouldn’t play our part. Whenever has that been the ethos of our nation? Except when the dairy industry has to play their part.

Imagine if we were at a climate discussion, and a big oil-producing nation said, “Oh, we can’t do anything about our oil-producing emissions, because it’s such a big part of our economy.” That is the logic—that is the exact logic—of this Government: “Just because it’s a big part of the economy, we’re not going to change anything.” How does Saudi Arabia have any different argument? They have the exact same argument, but all of us have to do our bit. All of us have to address our biggest emissions challenges.

The Minister of Climate Change said in his first speech that our farmers are the most efficient food producers in the world. That’s an argument we hear from this Government all the time. In his second speech, he said we are among the most carbon-efficient globally. You’ll see this chart later in the debate [Holds up chart], but can I just say that it’s very clear in terms of carbon efficiency that we are not in the top three; we’re not even in the top five. In the entire OECD, in terms of the carbon efficiency of farming, we fall behind Australia, the United States, and every one of the 27 European Union countries. We fall at No. 48 in terms of carbon—

Grant McCallum: Bollocks!

STEVE ABEL: It’s the science, Grant McCallum. You might not like it, but it’s the science, and I’ll tell you why we fall behind. It’s for a very simple reason: because most of our production is ruminant animals. That is the simple fact of the science.

Hon Nicola Grigg: On pasture.

STEVE ABEL: OK, then the next question: you accept that we’re not the most carbon-efficient food producers because most of what we’re producing is ruminant animals—

Dan Bidois: Can you explain the graph for us?

STEVE ABEL: It’s a list of the countries and their carbon efficiency. I’ll explain it later.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Order! Order! We don’t need the conversation across the House, please.

STEVE ABEL: I can table that graph for you—yeah, that’s right.

Then the next question becomes—which Nicola Grigg alludes to—are we the most carbonefficient animal producers? It turns out that we’re not even that, and the most important point is that the difference in efficiency is not most evident between countries; it’s between production styles.

There is a farmer right now on the Waikato who is farming dairy cows at 25 percent lower methane emissions than his neighbour, and so the point is that we can achieve substantial reductions in emissions across all our farming systems if we have the ambition. But this Government has the climate ambition of a flat sheet—absolutely no climate ambition.

We are abrogating our responsibility as a global citizen to be part of this existential challenge. Do you know what the biggest threat to food production globally over the next century is? It is climate change, it is global heating, and it is extreme weather, and you’re locking us into more of that.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Just for the member’s benefit, I am not doing that.

STEVE ABEL: Pardon me, Madam Speaker.

Look, on this side of the House, we respect our farmers. We respect our agricultural sector, which contributes 81 percent to our exports. We have the most carbon-efficient farmers in the world, and we do not want to send our food production offshore to less carbon-efficient countries. This is a realistic, balanced approach to methane targets. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Again, we’ve heard the chairperson of the Environment Committee talk about carbon-efficient farming, and here, of course, we are talking about methane target changing, not the carbon target changing. But it does remind me of when Dr Rod Carr was the chairperson of the Climate Change Commission. He would—

Hon Members: Oh!

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: I hear some disparaging remarks from across the aisle there. I don’t know why that would be, because he was an economist—we’ve heard the other side challenging the economics of the arguments that we’re making—and he was a very proper and diligent person doing a very difficult job. But there were some scoffs from the other side of the House, which makes me wonder about the change in chair of that commission. Hmm, interesting.

Francisco Hernandez: It makes you think.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Well—

Hon Member: There’s a minute!

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Oh, “There’s a minute”—I get a “There’s a minute” from the other side. I can assure those members that I’ve got plenty of things to say; do not worry about that.

But I was reminiscing on what the chair used to say, and he was like, “Well, if you want to reduce your methane targets, fine, but you have to change your carbon targets, then.”—that is what he would say. There is a budget, and if you’re going to change one input, there’s a corresponding effect on the other. If you want to reduce the methane and you say, “Well, the farmers have said it’s impossible”—and we’ll take that at the word of the previous speaker—fine. But then you have to be more ambitious about carbon, about nitrous oxide and about fluoride, and are we seeing any of that ambition? No, we are not. We’re not seeing any conversation, even, of that entire budget.

I would like the Minister to comment on this when he gets to the committee stage—the committee stage that is about to be upon us because, of course, we are in all-stages urgency, and it is very disrespectful of the people across this the aisle to say, “Well, just sit down and get there.” No. We are the Opposition that has very limited time to hold this terrible Government to account about legislation that, one, seems to make no sense, and, two, will result in more of the head-in-the-sand thinking of this Government that says, “Oh well, we just don’t need to do anything on climate change because we’re better than everyone else.” What a ridiculous approach. Why bother signing up to international agreements? Why bother signing up to bilateral trade agreements that say that we will do our part, when clearly this Government has no intention of doing our part?

We heard from Ministers before. Minister Mark Patterson said, “Oh well, all these other countries are”—I can’t remember what his word was, it was an interesting word—“putting out all their carbon emissions. They’re doing it, and so should we.” He didn’t say, “so should we”, but I’m inferring that that was the point of his argument, if there was some logic there, and that goes against the Paris Agreement.

That goes against all of New Zealand’s international ambitions in the world, where we, from all sides of the House, go around the world and say, “New Zealand is a small country with no near neighbours, and we have to rely on international laws and rules being followed.” That is what we say to the world, because we know that we are vulnerable here. We know that we rely on these international rules being followed and so we diligently go and sign up to some of them to match our rhetoric. But what we are seeing here is the undoing of that promise and that rhetoric, because the arguments put forward by Mark Patterson that some other countries are emitting a whole lot of carbon and so, therefore, it’s OK for us to reduce our ambition—all that does is undermine what we go around saying on the importance of international agreements. It is a shameful day.

Now, if farmers are so efficient, why do we need to change this target that already includes the 24 in it? Presumably, it is because that 24 isn’t going to be met and they want it to be at this lower range of 14 percent. We will go through this in the committee stage, as well, but where are we going to get to within those numbers if we don’t have any pricing?

I know that this bill is not about pricing, but it’s important to note that this is going in totally the opposite direction of where the National Party was. Those members said, “We don’t like the sort of pricing arrangements that you were working on with farm leaders for so long, Labour Party, but we do still think there should be a pricing mechanism.”—crickets, because, of course, the whole point of changing these targets is because they don’t want any pricing mechanism, which is a very big change in direction.

You could say that, well, that’s a change in direction because they’re in a coalition with the ACT Party, which is determined to do nothing on climate change and has a record on that, and now we have the New Zealand First Party that, despite being around when all this legislation was passed—before I was in this House—has changed its tune, as well. But it is the National Party who has the Minister of Climate Change. It is the National Party who stands up time and time again and says, “We’re in it for the farmers, and you are not, and we just want to say ‘Yes, yes, yes, grow, grow, grow’.”

At some point, there is a time in any regulatory environment where you have to say no, but these people seem to think that if they just say “Yes, yes, yes” enough, then it’ll be for someone else to finally say no, and who will those somebody elses be? Well, they could be our trading partners that say, “Hang on a moment New Zealand, you said that you were doing your part under Paris, but now you are not, so we are not going to trade with you anymore.” That’s a pretty big no.

It could be the ever-warming climate, with other countries looking at New Zealand and saying, “Well, you’re not doing your part, little old New Zealand at the bottom of the world. You’re going to have more storms, and it’s going to be the farmers who hurt because of that.” That seems to be like a very big no, as well.

Talking wider on the range of issues that have been discussed during this urgency, if your rivers are so polluted or if all the water is taken, well, no farmer is going to be able to grow anything, are they? That’s a pretty big no, as well. So let’s be realistic. You cannot say “Yes, yes, yes” for ever. There are always points of saying no, and that is what grown-ups know.

Now, moving on to food, we heard some interjections there about food. Food is very important. I’m very happy to be the food safety spokesperson for the Labour Party and I am the former food safety Minister, so I know very much how important food is to New Zealanders. What is happening in this bill is there is a new requirement that food production has to be a consideration. It’s about domestic food production, but the explanatory note says that it also refers to export, and there are questions around what the Climate Change Commission will be required to do when looking at this food. Is it really real questions like “If our climate changes by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius”—as it has—“where will we be able to grow things?” Where do the carbohydrates come from for New Zealand, given that most of us consume them but we import a whole lot of those? What is the role of protein?

Are these the issues that the Climate Change Commission will be looking at? Will it be looking at how much food we need domestically, or is it that total export focus? But, more importantly, will they be funded appropriately, because all we have seen from this Government is cynical cuts?

The member’s time has expired.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, I stand here in the House today, wearing my proud tie with the cows on it, because I am a Fonterra supplier. I think it is important to remember to ask the question: why are companies like Danone and Nestlé coming to us and wanting to do business with us? In response to what the previous speaker said: it’s because we are good at what we do. They know we’re good environmentally; they know we’re good in terms of our low-methane emissions and improving on it. I commend this bill to the House.

We’re hearing an awful lot of rhetoric from the Government benches about what a great day for farmers this is and how they’re the party that backs farmers. We heard from the chair of the Environment Committee that this was about respect for the people that provide 81 percent of our exports. I suggest to those backbenchers that are getting up and reading their lines that have been supplied to them by the Minister’s office that they actually start asking some questions. What I suggest they do is they have a look at some of the Cabinet and official documents that have been released under the Official Information Act (OIA) on the advice that their Minister received on this. What that advice did was redact the implications of our obligations under trade agreements. Now, I call on that Minister to release that redacted information to this House for the purposes of this debate, because what that information has said is that agreements with the EU and with the UK contain certain requirements around sustainability, including not weakening our environmental protections for trade advantage.

Now, I want to acknowledge the Hon Damien O’Connor, who went and put in place those trade agreements that actually are the things that are the most beneficial to our farmers—the ability to sell our products overseas. The changes that are being made here, potentially, put those trade agreements at risk. If this is not the case, then the Minister can clear this up; he can come down to the House during committee stage, and he can release to the Opposition, to his own backbench, and to the New Zealand public exactly what that advice said. Why it was redacted is a mystery. Why should New Zealanders not know what the implication is on our ability for 81 percent of our exports to reach their markets in high-value markets like Europe and like the UK? Why would the Minister keep that information not only from this House but from New Zealanders? I call on that Minister to come down and tell us this.

Instead of his backbench talking about farming being the foundation of our economy and all the other trite rhetoric that they’re trotting out, let’s have that evidence-based debate, let’s put the information on the table, and let’s see who really is undermining our rural sector and our food producers. It is changes like this that put it all at risk, and the Minister won’t even front up to this House or to New Zealand with the advice he’s received. Now, one of the things about receiving advice is not hiding behind the black vivid marker to shield all of that under the OIA. I call on that Minister to release that. It’s not that difficult. You can table it in the committee stage, Minister; it is not hard.

This is a bill that not only changes that methane target but also, as we talked about, decouples the emissions trading scheme settings from our international targets. Now, this has huge economic implications, and we will be calling on the Minister to tell us what advice he received when it comes to the committee stage. It’s very simple: if you don’t reduce emissions in one sector of the economy, another part of the economy has to pick up that slack. That will be New Zealand motorists when they go and fill up their cars, that will be New Zealand households when they pay their power bills, and that will be New Zealand industry who cannot keep employing people. These are the pieces of advice that this Minister received. This is the advice that this Minister knows that he is passing legislation to implement. This a piece of legislation that puts New Zealand’s economic security at risk. It risks our market security, and it will raise the cost of living.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, I’m pleased to take a call on this bill. It’s very clear: the farmers have been clear that they need a realistic methane target that provides certainty about what’s expected of them. I think they deserve that. The farmers of East Coast, Tairāwhiti, and the Eastern Bay of Plenty want that. This bill delivers it for our hard-working food producers. I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is a great bill. I commend it to the House.

This bill is set down for committee stage immediately. I declare the House in committee for the consideration of the Climate Change Response (2050 Target and Other Matters) Amendment Bill.

In Committee

Part 1 2050 target for biogenic methane emissions reduction