Commission Chairman Rod Carr said the headline message was that New Zealand needed to “pick up the pace” of gross emissions reductions. “We must ensure we are reducing our gross emissions from all sources as much as possible, rather than solely relying on offsetting our climate pollution. Current policies were encouraging an over-reliance on sequestration from pine forests, which could threaten the gross emission reductions required to stay net-zero beyond 2025. The ETS currently treats gross emissions reductions and forestry sequestration as direct equivalents. This means a lot of pine forests will be planted before it becomes economic for businesses to pursue gross emission reductions.
