New forest planting is no excuse for polluters to delay reducing their emissions, however we agree with the Climate Change Commission: the nation needs time in the quest to reduce carbon use. Recent studies show planting new forests (exotic or native) helps to buy the valuable time needed to achieve real change planned for 2035 and 2050.

Countless independent studies have all come to the same conclusion; we must have more tree planting because the need to soak up carbon and cool the planet is now very urgent. Failure to have these new forests will result in NZ buying units from offshore, in other words the taxpayer will pay an overseas entity to plant trees or reduce carbon, rather than invest the money here in NZ.

If Government suddenly becomes the sole purchaser of forestry units, as suggested by Minister Shaw in an article in Stuff last week, this sends a very strong message to potential new forest investors they will only have a monopolistic market in which to sell. Removing the free market mechanism for forestry units would slash investor confidence . A lack of investment would drive NZ towards a certain failure to meet the Climate Change Commission target: to plant an additional 380,000 hectares of exotic and 300,000 hectares of native forest estate.

Meeting our international targets is a huge challenge for NZ. We are concerned Government tinkering with rules and policy changes creates additional uncertainty in the market. The changes required in business practices as well as land use are not tinkering at the margin. Business-as-usual is not an option. Abandoning or falling short of our targets is an option, but we should expect an unsympathetic response from our export markets if we do.

If Minister Shaw believes there are too many NZU’s in the market, then we suggest they stop providing ‘hot air’ NZU’s each quarter to auction to polluters. These NZU’s are equivalent to the Government printing cash.

We agree if the level of planting exceeds what the Climate Change Commission recommends then planting can back off and the policy levers may need adjusting but we see no evidence to suggest we are anywhere near that happy place.

What we have with Minister Shaw’s proposal to nationalise Forestry units is yet another signal to long-term investors the government is having a re-think about the ETS rules. If the plan was to sow doubt and slow down planting then it has probably achieved its aim.

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