Labour ends 18-year pledge to price agricultural emissions

Summarised by Centrist

Labour has confirmed it will not campaign on pricing agricultural emissions, ending an election commitment the party has carried in various forms since 2008.

“We’re not going to be pricing agriculture as the default,” leader Chris Hipkins said. “We want to reduce agriculture emissions. We want to work with farmers to do that without putting a price on methane emissions.” He said pricing was “not ruled out for all time”, but would not be Labour’s “first port of call”.

The clarification comes after Hipkins was repeatedly asked whether Labour still supported putting a price on agricultural emissions and declined to give a direct answer, saying only that the party remained committed to reducing them.

Agriculture produces about half of New Zealand’s gross greenhouse-gas emissions, while biological methane and nitrous oxide remain outside the emissions trading scheme

Labour created the scheme in 2008 and originally intended agriculture to enter from 2013 at processor level, with free allocation equivalent to 90% of the sector’s 2005 emissions. 

National first deferred entry, then postponed it indefinitely.

Labour later backed alternatives including He Waka Eke Noa, the industry-led farm-pricing partnership established under Jacinda Ardern with initial bipartisan support. National later withdrew, and the current approach relies on technology and market incentives rather than an on-farm levy.

At the same time, Labour says the wider ETS carbon price is too low to drive meaningful emissions reductions and is promising an urgent review of the scheme.

The party says it would pause new forestry registrations while reviewing the role of forestry offsets, with the aim of encouraging businesses to cut emissions rather than simply buying credits.

Labour says it will instead work with farmers and major exporters to reduce agricultural emissions without putting a price on methane. It has not yet set out in detail what policies would replace pricing, while leaving open the possibility that emissions pricing could return later.

Read more at The NZ Herald | 1News | Environment Ministry

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