NZ news via China
Trees
destroyed as New Zealand climate change policy fails: academic
Unwanted
tree seedlings are being killed with herbicide as New Zealand's
attempts to mitigate the problem of greenhouse gas emissions and
climate change falter, a leading academic said Friday.
10
January, 2004
University
of Canterbury forestry expert Professor Euan Mason said a large
number of seedlings were grown by the university's School of Forestry
in response to the country's emissions trading scheme (ETS), but many
were destroyed after being left unsold during the 2013 planting
season.
"These
2-year-old seedlings were grown in anticipation of a well-functioning
emissions trading scheme," Mason said in a statement.
However,
the scheme, which was supposed to do "the heavy lifting in New
Zealand's climate policy," was "on its last legs," he
said.
With
a unique emissions profile, New Zealand could offer the world
valuable solutions for developing nations if only the country would
accept the opportunity, he said.
"Surprisingly,
New Zealand could be completely greenhouse gas neutral between 60 and
100 years by planting radiata pine on approximately 2.4 million
hectares, which is 9 percent of our land area, or more than doubling
our current plantation area of our marginal lands," said Mason.
The
emissions trading scheme was lacking effectiveness and credibility,
partly because of low credit prices, and partly because of a
piecemeal approach to implementing it, including the total exclusion
of the agricultural sector.
"By
excluding agriculture from our emissions trading scheme, we give a
free ride to the very sector that emits more greenhouse gas than any
other single sector in the country," he said.
New
Zealand has so far failed to respond adequately to climate change and
its emissions are among the fastest rising in the world.
The
New Zealand government has come in for international condemnation for
withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol at the end of 2012, gutting the
ETS and removing support for sustainable energy technologies.
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