This week is the second part of the interview with Rob Morrison from Pure Advantage. (First part here.)
We are talking about ETS settings and the impact afforestation will have on New Zealand. Morrison says that James Shaw admitted we were the only country in the world allowing the level of offsets within an ETS system that we do.
“I think at the moment for New Zealand to be credible on the global stage, we have to have an ETS that meets the global science and, and the whole idea of allowing polluters to offset their pollution, globally is increasingly discredited.”
The Climate Change Commission in New Zealand have been up until this point focused on plantation and exotic forestry. Morrison says that if we continue with the ETS we have to change the lookup tables. “If we continue with the ETS, you have to change your lookup tables so that native forestry is a viable option. And that it’s encouraged. You have to include regenerating scrub land, riparian land and so on. It's got to be done in a way that incentivises the planting, but also incentivises the way people look after that land."
“I think the whole ability for polluters to offset on a one-for-one basis, has to change. I think that's absolute nonsense at the moment. And I do think that the government acknowledges that we're out of line on that. I just think that globally, the international science is weighted against carbon offsets. And it's certainly weighted against plantation forestry for carbon sequestration. There's international science coming out around the fact that plantation forestry is not the solution to this global issue. New Zealand is sort of stuck in a 90s time warp, we have to change so the only way to do that is to change the ETS settings because that's the driver at the moment.”
In terms of farming Morrison says unless you farm in the Waikato on prime land which is predominantly uses for dairy, most farms and certainly most Hill Country firms have areas which aren't suitable for farming as It's not overly productive. “I think what we need is a mixed model in terms of farming, I think most farmers understand this now and they go, 'Okay, well let's get going on that. Let's take that land, retire it and we'll plant that in native trees, because this is just not about our generation which is where most of the forestry seems to be focused.' This is about our children and our grandchildren. So we take that unproductive land the marginal land and say, let's plant that into native forestry. We're then reducing the problem that our children and their grandchildren are going to face, don’t try and solve this problem the next 20 years because we've got artificial deadlines. You we have to plant trees that are capable of absorbing sequestering carbon for years and years.”
It is important to remember plantation forest trees don't regenerate, if you cut them down you must replant them. If you leave them, they die after 50 years or so. We have to build sustainable forest trees in this country and short-term economic gains over the next 30 years through carbon farming will not improve this countries long term outcome. We have regenerating native forests or pre-1990 forests in this country that are sequestering an extraordinary amount of carbon but not being recognised because of an imaginary line in the sand, we have every right to be aggrieved about this; we have been fleeced.
We need a long term plan that will actually deliver results. Regenerating native vegetation will have the ability to sequester carbon essentially forever. Not only are monoculture exotic forests negatively impacting rural communities by consuming good food producing country, and locking up large areas of land. But these exotic carbon sinks or mines as Morrison called them – are a pollution dumping ground for multinational polluting corporations who don’t need to make real changes to how they operate. That is not good enough and change needs to be made now. Tick tock, Jan 1 is not far away.
Listen to the podcast to hear the full story
Angus Kebbell is the Producer at Tailwind Media. You can contact him here.
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.