Kiwis commit to cap and trade by 2009
New Zealand won the Bledisloe Cup (Rugby) and also appears to be well and truly winning the climate change action! They have passed a climate change bill to set up the country’s emissions trading scheme to commence in 2009 and making it the first national cap-and-trade process outside of Europe.
The bill faced a rocky path to approval and the minority-led government was forced into months of negotiation with the Greens and New Zealand First parties to finally win majority support.
The Climate Change Bill will eventually manage all sectors of the economy with limits on the amount of greenhouse gas they can emit. If a business breaches their limit, they will have to buy credits from users that produced emissions below their ceiling.
The New Zealand will phase in sectors with the following dates – forestry from 2008, transport by 2009, stationary energy such as coal-fired power stations by 2010 and agricultural waste by 2013. This will include all emissions.
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