Govt releases draft regulations for emissions trading

A draft of the emissions trading regulations for forestry and liquid fossil fuels was released today by Climate Change Minister David Parker and Forestry Minister Jim Anderton.

The draft regulations have been released to provide more certainty for potential participants from the forestry and transport sectors about their obligations once they are required to take part in the emissions trading scheme.

“Once the Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill has been enacted, those participating in the scheme from the transport sector will be expected to collect data and information to calculate their greenhouse gas emissions.

“The regulations cover the details of these reporting obligations and we welcome feedback from the transport sector about the proposed regulations to help us develop them further and make them work for the industry,” David Parker said.

The proposed regulations for the forestry sector cover obligations under the emissions trading scheme for owners of forests planted before 1990.

Jim Anderton said: “Officials are still developing the regulations for forests planted after 1989, but the guidance being published with the draft regulations for pre-1990 forests details the planned approach.

“I urge forest owners to study the proposed regulations for pre-1990 forests carefully and let us know what they think. We’re keen to help forest owners understand how to measure and report their emissions and we value their input on the ‘look-up table’ methodologies we’ve proposed.”

The final content of the regulations is dependent on the provisions of the Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill once passed into law .

The draft regulations and accompanying guidance can be found at www.climatechange.govt.nz