Motu Economic and Public Policy Research

Around half of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions are from agriculture - a proportion that is much higher than the norm for developed countries. Consequently, Motu’s work funded by the “Coordination and Cooperation for Effective Climate Policy Design and Implementation” grant has focused on mitigating agricultural emissions, both through the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) but also through a range of other private and public efforts.

The list of publications from 2009–2012 on this page are mainly a result of the “Coordination and Cooperation for Effective Climate Policy Design and Implementation” grant. The Agricultural Emissions Dialogue Group and Agricultural Emissions blog also developed from this project. In 2012 Motu was very pleased to release a short educational film covering many of our findings from this project, the New Zealand Farming Story: Tackling Agricultural Emissions. The film comes with a range of teaching materials, including an editable presentation and speaking notes, designed to make the film a good resource to use with secondary and tertiary students, farmers, or people working with farmers - anyone who eats!

Agricultural Emissions Trading

The New Zealand government plans to include methane and nitrous oxide, both greenhouse gases from pastoral agriculture, horticulture, and arable production, in the New Zealand ETS, currently some time after 2015. Motu’s emissions trading work in New Zealand involves exploring how agricultural emissions can be addressed most effectively in New Zealand.

Besides the publications listed below, you can also find out more about agricultural emissions trading at the Ministry for Primary Industries’ website. Motu was involved in the MPI’s Agricultural Technical Advisory Group, whose final report, “Point of Obligation Designs and Allocation Methodologies for Agriculture and the Emissions Trading Scheme”, can be read here. Motu has also developed an educational game around Agriclutral Emissions Trading, which can be found here.

Agricultural Emissions Blog

This blog has been set up as a forum for discussing agricultural and greenhouse gas emissions, with a New Zealand focus. Contributors come from a variety of relevant backgrounds.