The Government has introduced the Climate Change Response Bill and it is open for submission. The Bill will put in place to allow NZ to meet its international obligations under the Kyoto Protocol to a framework the UNFCCC.
By way of reminder, the Protocol provides a global target for developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, on average, to at least 5% below 1990 levels for each of the 5 years from 2008 to 2012.
The key measures provided in the Bill to enable NZ to meet its international obligations are the:
powers to the Minister of Finance to manage NZ’s holding of units (which includes emission units, such as from industry emitting greenhouse gases, and removal units, such as in sinks eg trees) and to trade in those units on the international marketcreation by the Ministry of Economic Development of a Registry of Units – which is to provide an accurate, transparent and efficient exchange of information and an independent transaction log.establishment of a national inventory agency by the Ministry for the Environment to record NZ’s emissions of greenhouse gases and removals by sinks, with reasonably coercive powers of collection of information (akin to those given to enforcement officers under the RMA regime).Submissions are to made to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Select Committee.
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Copyright Phillips Fox, 2002
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