Farmers 'zero' in on a 2020 emissions target

Federated Farmers is describing the race to set a 2020 emissions reduction target as a political gesture.

“The real emissions targets will be set by international negotiation, not the aspirational targets being batted around at the moment,” says Don Nicolson, President of Federated Farmers.

“Getting back to 1990 emission levels would be a major achievement in its own right, given emissions grew by 22 percent between 1990 and 2007.

“Federated Farmers view is that any target must follow the Select Committee reviewing the Emissions Trading Scheme. New Zealand can set a target but only after a full rational debate is held on what it will cost our economy.

“To be green you have to be in the black.

“While one fringe group is asking for an emissions reduction of 40 percent, the real effort required is more like a 62 percent reduction. What that group wants is greenicide, which would obliterate the economy.

“Targets are an unhelpful distraction from the business of farming. While self-important people tell us what is supposedly good for us, farmers get up each morning and go to work to bring money into the New Zealand economy.

“Farmers want the eye of the Government set on improving business conditions.

“That’s why Federated Farmers argues technology will provide the solution to both strong economic growth and reduced emissions. Developing technology means having a strong economy to fund it.

“Donald Rumsfeld’s ‘known unknowns’ logic seems to typify the climate change debate with lots of ‘unknown knowns.' Calculating emissions is wonky to say the least, since a tweak can see New Zealand swing from a large emission deficit to a smaller surplus.

“New Zealand farmers have been here before with our ETS in 1985, but back then, it was an efficiency trading scheme with the end of subsidies. At the time, we were told we set an example for the rest of the world to follow and doesn’t that sound familiar?

“Given the world’s population will grow by 3.9 billion mouths over the next four decades, technology will play its part. Technology has constantly disproved the Malthusian Theory that many fringe lobbyists hold true,” Mr Nicolson concluded.