Talk about a wrong turn. New Zealand鈥檚 carbon emissions are set to be three times as high as its target, despite the country having an emissions trading scheme.
The government wants to cut emissions to half of 1990 levels by 2050. But it released last week show that they are likely to be 50 per cent higher than 1990 levels by 2040.
The has a low carbon price of , but under the Kyoto protocol companies can buy cheaper .
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That means the emissions cuts are happening elsewhere, says of the Australian National University in Canberra. 鈥淣ew Zealand鈥檚 legitimate abatement comes mainly in other countries rather than at home.鈥�
Just too cheap
The cheap carbon credits won鈥檛 be available after 2015, when New Zealand . That will mean the cost of producing carbon in New Zealand will rise to around $3 a tonne, or whatever the local price is at that time.
But that won鈥檛 be enough to affect emissions much. 鈥�$3 is not going to shift a cost-benefit analysis significantly,鈥� says of Motu Economic and Public Policy Research in Wellington.
The government will meet its targets by cutting domestic emissions, building carbon sinks and buying international offsets, says the Ministry for the Environment. But Kerr says the plan is not clear. 鈥淣ew Zealand doesn鈥檛 have a long-term vision about how it is going to get its emissions down.鈥�
