Deferral of NZ ETS reporting obligations for animals–farmer activities

Overview

NZ ETS date deferred for animal farmers

The Government has deferred the date animal farmers must meet NZ Emissions Trading Scheme (NZ ETS) obligations from 1 January 2024 to 1 January 2026. This gives the Government more time to legislate and implement a farm-level split-gas agricultural emissions levy system.

The deferral follows Cabinet’s August 2023 decision to progress work to ensure mandatory reporting of agricultural emissions by late 2024 and pricing of them a year later.

A later date for farmers to monitor, report and surrender (pay for) emissions can be set by the Governor General by Order in Council (OiC) under the Climate Change Response Act (CCRA).

Public consultation on whether to defer NZ ETS obligations for animal farmers and progress the OiC ran from 18 August to 6 September with 1,225 submissions received.

On October 2, Cabinet authorised the OiC to be presented to the Governor General for signing.

Pricing agricultural emissions through the NZ ETS was set up as a backstop option to ensure progress towards reducing agricultural emissions.

The NZ ETS backstop consists of two parts:

• • processor-level pricing
  • farm-level pricing for animals–farmer activities.

The NZ ETS backstop at the processor level will remain in place as set out in the CCRA. Surrender obligations for animals and fertiliser activities at the processor level start from 1 January 2025 unless the relevant provisions are repealed.

Consultation overview

The Ministry for the Environment sought feedback on the Government's proposal to defer the date animals–farmers become liable for their emissions under the NZ Emissions Trading Scheme (NZ ETS).

The Government proposed deferring the date by two years, from 1 January 2024 to 1 January 2026.

Deferring the date would give the Government more time to continue to develop specific agricultural emissions pricing policy alongside the He Waka Eke Noa Primary Sector Climate Action Partnership it has been working with since 2019.

Read the full discussion document [PDF, 1.1 MB]

If you have any further questions, please email AgEmissionsPricing@mfe.govt.nz.