Latest news with #EmissionsTradingScheme
Otago Daily Times
19 hours ago
- Automotive
- Otago Daily Times
End of the road for fuel tax
The road is running out for using petrol taxes as the primary way to fund New Zealand's roads. Fuel tax may be simple to administer and penalise gas guzzlers more than granny cars, but change is inevitable. Last year, the government introduced road user charges (RUCs) for the growing fleet of electric vehicles. According to Transport and Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop, fuel-efficient petrol hybrid vehicles have accelerated from 12,000 in 2015 to more than 350,000 today. Modern petrol cars are also more fuel-efficient than older vehicles. As Mr Bishop said: "It isn't fair to have Kiwis who drive less and who can't afford a fuel-efficient car paying more than people who can afford one and drive more often." In his announcement on Wednesday, Mr Bishop wisely avoided setting firm dates for this "once-in-a-generation change". While legislation could be passed next year, implementing nationwide technology changes will be much more challenging. Nevertheless, the government has signalled 2027 as the target for the system to be "open for business", with third-party providers offering payment services through a consistent approval process. Given the repeated delays in launching a national bus ticketing system and other costly tech failures and setbacks, the 2027 timeline is ambitious. Naturally, concerns have been raised about the administration costs, already a problem with the "clunky" current paper-based RUC system. The government will have to ensure private providers do not embed excessive profits for years to come. Present road user charges for light vehicles are $76 per 1000km, plus a $12 or $13 administration fee. Petrol taxes a litre are about 70c for the National Land Transport Fund (the roads), 6c for ACC, 14c for the Emissions Trading Scheme levy and GST on top. The envisioned system would allow motorists to pay online, like any other bill. Time-of-day or toll-based charges could also be included. Many new vehicles already have the necessary onboard technology. Older cars would likely require added sensors to measure distance and possibly weight. About half of heavy trucks already use electronic devices to calculate location, mileage and RUCs. If the present RUC rates were applied uniformly, they would unfairly penalise small car owners. The "light vehicle" category includes anything under 3500kg, from the top-selling Ford Ranger to the popular compact Suzuki Swift. A Toyota Corolla weighs about 1820kg. Yet, the Ranger takes up more space and causes significantly more road wear. At present, it pays more per kilometre because of higher fuel consumption. Introducing weight-based tiers within the "light vehicle" category would create complexity and anomalies at the margins. Still, the current definition is far too broad. Overhauling any system creates winners and losers, fuelling opposition. Expect robust debate as the details are worked through. Urban drivers stuck in congestion and with low-speed, stop-start driving would benefit, as they travel shorter distances for similar fuel use. Those in hilly areas could also come out ahead. Owners of older, less efficient vehicles may see their overall bills drop. Potential digital surveillance and tracking raise legitimate privacy concerns. It is easy to say that those with nothing to hide have nothing to fear. However, the brick-by-brick erosion of civil liberties and democracy in the United States is a cautionary tale about what could happen anywhere. Enforcement will be another challenge. At present, odometer readings at warrants of fitness help ensure a reasonable level of compliance, but some will likely find ways to cheat the new system. Avoiding petrol tax is harder by comparison. The announcement is no surprise. RUCs were floated before the election and included in the National-Act New Zealand coalition agreement. The AA supports the change in principle, acknowledging both its logic and its challenges. These issues must be tackled fairly and effectively along New Zealand's bumpy road to a new way of funding its roads.
Otago Daily Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Otago Daily Times
Ex-minister hits out at pine carbon farming
A tree industry expert and former minister of forestry has condemned "lock and leave" carbon farming, but says you still can not tell farmers what to do with their land. Former Labour minister Stuart Nash said in his time with the portfolio he had a dream for how the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) would benefit the country. "With the ETS, for the first time ever there's been an economic incentive to plant up land that should have never been cleared in the first place," he said. But forestry conversions, since the incentive was introduced, where dense pines were planted with no plan to harvest the mature trees, were not good, he said. "You will end up with an ecological disaster in between 80 and 100 years," he said. He understood that some legislation was developing to help restrict the planting of pines, but said you still can not tell farmers what to do with their land and their money. "I don't know if that's the right route," he said. "Farmers get pretty p..... off ... because what it does mean is, their farm which may be worth, $10 million to a forester is now only worth $7m." The Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme-Forestry Conversions) Amendment Bill passed its first reading in June. It proposed restrictions to the quality and proportion of arable land that could be planted in trees. Mr Nash had a masters degree in forestry science and previously worked for construction, paper and forestry giants Carter Holt Harvey and Fletcher Challenge. His ideal for carbon farming was that pines would be planted low density, for no longer than 50 years, while at the same time seeding natives. Then after 50 years, the ministry would allow the grower to collect carbon credits of the native forest as the pines died off. In this ideal situation, carbon farmers would not be allowed to collect credits or money on pines past that 50-year cut-off. He said research by the sustainability charitable trust Pure Advantage showed that Mānuka could be a just as fast growing and carbon-absorbing alternative to pines. While he was the minister, he said the research needed more time to cook and the good thing about pines were that they were the most hardy. "It's the over-boiled Brussels sprouts of the trees," he said. "Not many people like it, not many [bugs and diseases] like it [either]." Coming from Napier, he had seen the devastation Cylone Gabrielle and Cyclone Hale had on the east coast of the North Island in 2023. This was where trees on farms would have come in handy, he said as roots made the ground more hardy, and would have prevented slips and other soft ground corrosion after the floods. A lot of New Zealand land should never had been cleared for farming and he said it was expensive to plant hilly, non-productive land, without incentive. He said despite seeing the benefit of forests and the ETS for the land, he by no means wanted to see highly productive farms and soil turned into carbon farms. "I'm really loathe to tell farmers what they should and shouldn't do," he said. "But I'm very happy to tell carbon farmers what they should do."
Barnama
31-07-2025
- Business
- Barnama
13MP: Green Economy Agenda Intensified, Priority To Environmental Sustainability
KUALA LUMPUR, July 31 (Bernama) -- The government will intensify efforts to implement a comprehensive green economy agenda under the 13th Malaysia Plan (13MP), with a wide range of initiatives aimed at promoting environmental sustainability and accelerating the nation's transition to low-carbon development. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, when tabling the nation's five-year plan in the Dewan Rakyat today, said the green economy will serve as a development model that prioritises environmental stewardship while creating new, sustainable economic opportunities. As part of this effort, carbon trading will be streamlined through the introduction of the National Carbon Market Policy, the implementation of an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), and the provision of incentives for carbon credit projects. 'Apart from that, activities related to carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) will also be intensified and integrated into the nation's green investment and financing taxonomy,' he said. The Prime Minister said the government will also launch a pilot carbon capture project in the iron and steel industry, specifically in Kemaman, Terengganu, as part of efforts to decarbonise heavy industry. Abwar said that to support national decarbonisation goals across key sectors, green financing mechanisms will be expanded to provide broader access for industry players and project developers. He also revealed that the government has drafted a Malaysian Aviation Sector Decarbonisation Roadmap, which outlines infrastructure development and the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) to reduce carbon emissions from air travel. In parallel, the government will optimise agricultural waste to drive a circular economy, turning biomass into new sources of value-added products. 'As such, the waste-to-energy plant programme will also be expanded through private sector collaboration to reduce the nation's reliance on landfills.
The Spinoff
28-07-2025
- Business
- The Spinoff
Butter prices are just a symptom of everything being completely rooted
Butter is the latest in a long line of individual products to be scapegoated for our crushing and ongoing cost of living reality, which shows no sign of abating. Miles Hurrell may have mentally cursed Nicola Willis for believing in him as he sweated through a barrage of media questions last Thursday. The finance minister had told the Fonterra chief executive he'd be great at this, emerging from their meeting two days prior with nothing but praise for his efforts to explain the price of butter. He was 'so good at communicating about this that I've encouraged him that he should provide that information directly to New Zealanders', she'd said. 'And I've been assured that that is something that he will be doing later this week.' Later that week had arrived, and things weren't going as well as expected. 'Do you actually understand what it's like for consumers to go to the supermarket and face these prices?' asked a reporter, her voice betraying an unmistakable hint of being extremely pissed off. 'Absolutely, I was in the supermarket last night,' hazarded Hurrell. Unfortunately, he'd omitted a small detail which may have undercut his attempt at relatability. 'What do you get paid?' the reporter asked. The answer, as it turns out, is nearly $6 million per annum, or enough to buy about 600,000 blocks of Anchor butter. The reaction to the interview wasn't universally positive. Analysts asked whether the dairy cooperative has lost its social licence. Social media users called for boycotts. On the one hand, fair enough. It feels like yesterday farmers were driving their tractors down Queen Street, complaining that climate regulations had made it impossible for them to do business. They won, with the incoming coalition government extending agriculture's exemption from the Emissions Trading Scheme. Now, after securing their own bespoke financial arrangement, they're saying they can't create another one for us sadsacks weeping in the Woolworths aisle. On the other hand, butter is only the latest disgusting boil on a massive pus-bleached body of unaffordability. When he wasn't uttering hexes on the finance minister, Hurrell's mind likely turned to Leviticus 16:21, where the high priest Aaron was commanded to place both his hands on the head of a live goat, and confess over it all the inequities of his people. The scapegoat would then be set free in the wilderness as a wandering representative for the sins of the nation. Butter is our current scapegoat. Before it came along, we had domestic airfares. Before that, fuel prices. Before that, flat whites. For one weird moment in late 2024, we had a collective freakout over the price of bean products. Before that, we had rates. Before that, avocados. All these products serve as a temporary focal point for the broader sense that everything's completely rooted. Butter is guilty of being too brazen about filching from our back pockets, with its roughly 50% price rise year on year, but most household staples are getting way out of hand. Buying enough mince for burgers costs an hour's work on the minimum wage. Cheese toasties are in 'sell your kidney' territory. Most significantly, sour coke lollies are now upwards of $2 a bag. Unless you're earning $6 million as the chief executive of Fonterra, it hurts paying for the basics. Something's got to give. The cost of living crisis has become the cost of living reality, and outside of urban upzoning and some positive noises about increasing supermarket competition, few politicians are proposing changes that could meaningfully alter the problems at the heart of our economic funk. If we want to leave a New World without feeling like we've just been mugged, we need higher wages and fairer tax settings. Instead we'll get rotating media freakouts about individual price spikes. This week a goat has been sent out into the desert, lathered in a 500g block of Anchor salted butter. But even as the castigation subsides, the underlying curse remains. A new representative for our collective failings will have to be selected soon. Have you seen the price of a block of Whittaker's Hazella lately? It's absolutely outrageous.
Telegraph
28-07-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Starmer must scrap EU net zero deal, Labour MPs warn
Sir Keir Starmer is facing fresh pressure to scrap his Net Zero deal with Brussels amid warnings that it will harm British businesses. A cross-party group of MPs, including two Labour backbenchers, have written to the Government to argue that linking Britain's energy system with the EU's as part of a 'reset' could put UK companies out of business. Sir Keir announced in May that he would link the UK's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), through which companies buy carbon credits, with its equivalent in Europe. Carbon credits are designed to discourage carbon emissions and offset the environmental damage caused by polluters. Oil and gas producers and high-emissions manufacturing businesses are required to buy credits from a marketplace regulated by the Government, which each allow them to emit one tonne of carbon. However, since Brexit the UK's system has been run separately to the EU's, and the prices have varied for the first time. Credits in the UK are currently trading at a significant discount compared to their European counterparts. The MPs warned that by aligning Britain with Brussels, Sir Keir will push up the cost of production in the UK and could push businesses to relocate abroad. He will also hand control over the management of the scheme to the EU, forcing British companies to be regulated by a system that the UK government does not manage. The Government argues that linking the schemes will lower trade barriers between the UK and EU, as part of a wider 'reset' with Brussels after Brexit. But in a letter to Nick Thomas-Symonds, the EU relations minister, the MPs said that the UK must enforce a series of 'red lines' ahead of further negotiations with the European Commission. They warned that the UK should not 'become a rule-taker with no say in the scheme' and warned Sir Keir not to accept 'dynamic alignment' – which would lock the UK into changes the EU decides in the future. Henry Tufnell, the chair of the Commission for Carbon Competitiveness, said the two carbon schemes should not be linked until the cost of credits is comparable, to avoid a spike in costs for businesses. 'We support closer cooperation with the EU – and UK industry must be protected,' he said. 'The current path risks higher prices, a drop in our competitiveness, closures and job losses.' 'There is still time to get this right, but the UK must retain a say in the scheme in the long-term. 'Giving control over to the EU means we can't act in the best interest of our manufacturing industries or change approach if our circumstances change'. Their letter comes after The Telegraph revealed that linking the ETS schemes could drive up energy bills by increasing the cost of electricity from gas-fired power stations. Under the plans, carbon-intensive electricity generators will be required to buy carbon credits at the higher EU price. They are likely to pass the additional costs on to consumers. Nick Timothy, the Conservative MP, estimated that the Brexit 'reset' could add £112 to household bills, through higher energy prices and the increased cost of carbon-intensive goods.
