Motu Economic and Public Policy Research

Under the Coordination and Cooperation for Effective Climate Policy Design and Implementation project, Motu, in collaboration with EcoClimate and the Integrated Economics of Climate Change project, has started a dialogue group on how to efficiently control agricultural emissions in the medium term. The dialogue process will draw on and provide feedback to the research discussed above and look to ensure that agricultural emissions are addressed in a way that that is robust, effective, efficient and fair.

The group, which is made up of farmers, tangata whenua, and representatives from farm industry groups, NGOs, and the government, and will be informed by a wide range of climate change experts from many different institutions, has now met a number of times, and has held successful weekend retreats.  As a complement to this group Motu will be enhancing our emissions trading games as a tool to facilitate lay-people’s understanding of how the emissions trading system would affect agriculture.

Why create a dialogue?

Agricultural emissions make up nearly half of New Zealand’s gross emissions. Finding ways to fairly and efficiently control these could be one of New Zealand’s main contributions to the global climate change effort. In addition, under Kyoto and its successors these emissions impose a considerable burden on New Zealand because we have to pay for (or bear the opportunity cost) of these emissions. In order to address this, agricultural emissions have been slated to enter the New Zealand emissions trading system (ETS) in 2015.

Motu has set up a dialogue group process that will look to ensure that agricultural emissions are addressed in a way that that is robust, effective, efficient and fair. While short term decisions about agriculture’s initial entry into the ETS have been made, this will be a transition toward longer term policies about which many aspects are still undecided. This longer term response is our group’s focus.
While several groups have been convened to explore various aspects of agricultural emissions, we believe that we can contribute to this discussion in five distinct ways. Our dialogue group takes a long-term perspective on the issues. Our coverage is broad:  it includes on-farm mitigation and emissions trading but also other policy options, technology change, non-regulatory options and the interaction with complementary policy goals such as water quality. While Motu’s strength is economics, we have brought in experts from a wide range of disciplines. Our process is independent of government and stakeholder groups. This minimises the political pressures on participants and allows the group to approach the issues in a more open-minded way. Our dialogue process focuses on achieving technical consensus rather than gaining political consensus.

We believe that this focus allows us to make a significant contribution by: identifying policies that are better for everyone, possibly including options that are not currently being considered; clarifying tradeoffs where they are unavoidable; and, by developing and exploring the implications of different principles for cost sharing, providing a more informed basis for debate on this critical issue. Building understanding and consensus on the major issues will also be beneficial; introduction of policy will become easier politically and administratively. The efficacy of any policy will also improve as agricultural emitters will react more positively as a result of greater understanding and agreement. The contributions of the dialogue group will also ensure that Motu’s ongoing agricultural emissions research is well informed by all stakeholder groups.

What is the dialogue?

We have convened a group of smart, open-minded people with a  range of technical, sectoral and social perspectives for a two-year process beginning in March 2011 to jointly explore a wide range of issues critical to effective design of an agricultural emissions policy given NZ’s participation in global climate agreements. We do not discuss whether NZ should participate in an international agreement, the appropriate target for NZ or the globe or the appropriate shape for a post-2012 agreement. The individuals do not ‘represent’ different interests but rather bring experience and knowledge from their own perspective to the group effort.

The process is professionally facilitated. Meetings are held at regular intervals and include both half-day preparatory meetings and approximately three in-depth two day retreats. Half-day meetings are technically focussed. For each meeting a short summary paper is prepared and circulated in advance by drawing on existing work and knowledge. This informs discussion within the dialogue group, which in turn informs substantial editing of the summary paper before its release. Some meetings may be held by video conference or the technical material may be repeated in different locations to facilitate participation by senior people and minimise cost for all. The two day retreats build on the earlier technical sessions to discuss the issues further and in greater depth. We sought an initial commitment from participants for at least the first set of half day meetings and related retreat.

The group operates under the Chatham House rule, and any published outputs will acknowledge their participation (if they choose) but be the responsibility of and represent the opinions of Motu alone. We do not aim to produce a consensus view. We aim to produce a focused and informed policy environment.

This design of this dialogue process builds on similar successful dialogue efforts relating to the overall emissions trading system and the design of a nutrient trading programme for Lake Rotorua.