Dairy Industry under New Zealand's Emissions TradingScheme: Analysis of Farmers' Attitudes towards Climate Change: The Expense Created by the NZETS and the Point that Farmers will Begin to Reduce Emissions

摘要

Adaptation to actual climate change and contingency planning to reduce vulnerability from likely climate change effects is crucial for the New Zealand dairy industry. Thus in alignment withinternational treaties and growing international pressure and speculation, the New ZealandGovernment in October 2007 announced an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) adaptable specifically to the New Zealand scene. This ETS passed into law in September 2008 through the enactment of the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading) Amendment Act 2008.This thesis specifically looks at agriculture related emissions and calculates the liability faced by thedairy industry come 2013 when the industry is completely involved in the ETS. The purpose of this is to further aid the industry so that it can best align itself with the ETS in order to minimise thisliability. This is not simply an aid to help the industry save money, as the minimisation of liabilityshould come as a benefit to the environment through reduced emissions. There is also a secondissue associated with this - as to whether the liability faced by the industry will be material enoughin order for the farmers to actually mitigate their environmental impacts or will they simply bear theexpense and ignore the opportunities to reduce their emissions against a baseline (and potentiallygenerate carbon credits for sale) and/or offset any residual emissions through purchasing carboncredits? This therefore analysed the threshold of farmer's incomes whereby they will choose toabate their emissions rather than simply paying for their carbon emissions liability. This thresholdobviously varied greatly through the dairying industry with differing factors - this was taken intoaccount and discussed in detail. Other aspects influence this threshold also, factors such as theopportunity for the industry to market a niche product if they do achieve a low carbon or carbonneutral status for their products, cost competitiveness of available abatement technologies, geographical issues pertaining to each abatement method and so on. In order to gain an insight into farmers' perceptions 23 Taranaki dairy farmers were interviewed. This 23 was selected randomly from a list of farmers who reside in the geographical area of Taranaki. This randomisation allowed for an analysis of a variety of size of farmers which eliminated a bias ofperceptions from dominating farming sizes within this region. Utilising the theoretical framework surrounding stabilisation triangles, riparian management and nitrification inhibitors were the basis of this examination for emissions reduction management due to their major co-benefit of improved water quality alongside the ultimate goal of emissions reductions. The extent of potential mitigation through the implementation of riparian management and nitrification inhibitors equates to two of the wedges required for the overall reduction in emissions under the ETS. Also, as explained earlier, the co-benefit of improved water qualityassociated with riparian management and nitrification inhibitors make their implementation even more attractive. The theory behind riparian management and nitrification inhibitors has mostly been done, therefore for the purpose of this thesis, farmers' perceptions of the abatement options were examined. These perceptions included the associated opportunities as well as the challenges that will be faced by those participating farmers.