The Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading) Amendment Act 2008 was a statute enacted in September 2008 by the Fifth Labour Government of New Zealand that established the first version of the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme, a national all-sectors all-greenhouse gases uncapped and highly internationally linked emissions trading scheme.
Legislative history 2007–2008
On 20 September 2007, after consulting on policy options for climate change and energy, the Labour-led Government announced that it intended to establish an emissions trading scheme to respond to climate change. Prime Minister Helen Clark stated: "The Government believes that an emissions trading scheme which puts a price on emissions creates the right incentives across the economy to use fuel and energy more efficiently".
On 4 December 2007, the Labour Government introduced the Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill into Parliament. The bill amended the Climate Change Response Act 2002 by inserting an emissions trading scheme including all sectors of the economy and all greenhouse gases. The bill also restricted the commissioning of any new fossil-fuelled thermal power stations for 10 years.
On 9 September 2008, the sections of the Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill establishing the NZ ETS were separated into the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading) Amendment bill.
On 10 September 2008, the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading) Amendment Act 2008 had its third reading in Parliament and was adopted 63 votes to 57 with support from the Green Party and New Zealand First. The Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading) Amendment Act 2008 received the royal assent on 25 September 2008.
Summary of Labour NZ ETS
The proposed scheme was to cover all six greenhouse gases specified in the Kyoto Protocol, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), sulphur hexafluoride (SF6). It would be economy-wide, covering all sectors including agriculture. 'Participants' who must account for their emissions will be few and high in the production chain of each sector and will have to surrender one New Zealand unit (NZU) or one internationally tradable Kyoto-compliant unit for each tonne of emissions.
New Zealand emission units would have been capped in number and distributed to participants either by grand-parenting (gifting) or auctioning. Sectors would enter the NZ ETS at staggered dates, from January 2008 (forestry) through until January 2013 (agriculture), and have differing allocations of free New Zealand units. In general, participants who can pass on costs of the ETS, such as fuel companies to motorists, would not be allocated free units. While participants whose produce is priced internationally, such as dairy exporters, would be allocated a level of free units.
Lack of a cap
In 2007, the Ministry for the Environment acknowledged that the NZ ETS would not have a binding, absolute limit on the total level of emissions allowed in New Zealand. While the quantity of NZ Units gifted to eligible emitters would be fixed, the quantity of international 'Kyoto-compliant' units that could be brought in to match emissions would not be limited. Unlike most other emissions trading schemes the NZ ETS has no limit on the volume of international emissions units (CERs and ERUs) that may be imported. Consequently, there is no cap or limit on the volume of emissions permitted in New Zealand provided that emissions units are imported into the country and surrendered.
Ministry for the Environment Fact Sheet 16 stated: “There is no cap on the emissions that occur within New Zealand.” However, the Ministry for the Environment still regarded the NZ ETS as operating within the cap on emissions established by the Kyoto Protocol for the first commitment period of 2008–2012. Moyes (2008) describes this as a "flexible cap" where New Zealand sourced emissions regulated by the NZETS are constrained only by the international market price for GHG emissions.
Greenpeace noted that the proposed NZ ETS placed no limit on the number of permits that could be imported into New Zealand and it did not include a domestic emission reduction target. Greenpeace considered that in operation the NZ ETS would be a carbon tax with the rate set by the world market price. Bertram and Terry (2008, p35) concluded that the NZ ETS is not a cap-and-trade scheme as described in the economics literature because it does not place a cap on New Zealand's emissions of greenhouse gases.