Paris Agreement debate splits NZ farm sector

While some farmers are pushing for NZ to withdraw from the climate change pact, industry-good bodies DairyNZ and Beef+Lamb NZ warn against doing that.

Federated Farmers is also grappling with the issue.

As Rural News went to press, the Feds annual meeting in Christchurch was deliberating on several remits from some provinces to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, which NZ signed in 2016.

The Government has no plans to withdraw. At the Primary Industries Summit in Christchurch last week, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay said that leaving the Paris Agreement would be madness.

He warned that other countries would use that to block our exports and clear our products from their supermarket shelves.

"There would be consequences, whether you believe in climate change or not, because the world does not owe New Zealand a living," says McClay.

Methane Science Accord spokesman Owen Jennings says the Minister of Agriculture and Trade has a strange idea of 'madness'.

"The claim that the world's supermarkets would refuse to stock New Zealand's healthy food if we left the Paris Agreement is a much better definition of 'madness' than his idea that leaving would have dire consequences," he told Rural News.

"Why on Earth would they refuse our superior quality food, that has the lowest carbon footprint of any exported produce, in exchange for environmentally-inferior goods produced in crammed, smelly barns and over-crowded feedlots often shot full of hormones and antibiotics?"

He says McClay ought to be asking all food exporters for their comment on leaving the Paris Agreement.

"He might find his claim about an adverse reaction is not shared by all of them," says Jennings.

DairyNZ chair Tracy Brown says exiting the Paris Agreement would not be in dairy farmers' interests as they believe it would affect our credibility with customers.

Dairy drives the export-led NZ economy, which is underpinned by trade agreements that specify adherence to the Paris Agreement, she told Rural News.

"A lot of work goes into negotiating trade agreements, with modern ones including environmental language and all coming up for renegotiation at some stage, so we need to be well placed on this. We would want to see the Agreement implemented as intended: without limiting food production and export revenues."

Beef+Lamb NZ chair Kate Acland told Rural News that they were "very unhappy" about the Government's revised international commitment that they made earlier this year.

"However, there are real trade risks if New Zealand withdraws from Paris - it would not just be symbolic," says Acland.