| The proposed rules for the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) will involve huge transfers of wealth but make very little difference to New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions in the next five years, says a Sustainability Council report released today. Households, road users, and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), that generate a third of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, will meet 90% of the payments required before 2013 as a result of the ETS. Prior to 2013, the ETS fully exempts agricultural producers, and large industrial emitters are heavily exempted and rebated. Households, road users and SMEs will be billed for $4 billion of total net payments of $4.4 billion resulting from the ETS up to 2012 (based on the current world price for carbon credits of about $30 per tonne). As the great bulk of transport fuel charges are paid directly or indirectly by SMEs and households, it is these groups that will carry the ETS. Read the full media statement >> Read the Sustainability Council report >> |
top