Talk about a wrong turn. New Zealand's carbon emissions are set to be three times as high as its target, despite the country having an emissions trading scheme.
The government wants to cut emissions to half of 1990 levels by 2050. But projections it released last week show that they are likely to be 50 per cent higher than 1990 levels by 2040.
The Emissions Trading Scheme has a low carbon price of NZ$3.70 (US$3) a tonne, but under the Kyoto protocol companies can buy cheaper carbon credits from developing nations.
That means the emissions cuts are happening elsewhere, says Ross Garnaut of the Australian National University in Canberra. "New Zealand's legitimate abatement comes mainly in other countries rather than at home."
Just too cheap
The cheap carbon credits won't be available after 2015, when New Zealand leaves the protocol. That will mean the cost of producing carbon in New Zealand will rise to around $3 a tonne, or whatever the local price is at that time.
But that won't be enough to affect emissions much. "$3 is not going to shift a cost-benefit analysis significantly," says Suzi Kerr of Motu Economic and Public Policy Research in Wellington.
The government will meet its targets by cutting domestic emissions, building carbon sinks and buying international offsets, says the Ministry for the Environment. But Kerr says the plan is not clear. "New Zealand doesn't have a long-term vision about how it is going to get its emissions down."
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