Summarised by Centrist
ACT is calling for changes to the Paris climate accord, describing it as “a bad boyfriend” that New Zealand should leave if it cannot be reformed.
Speaking at a South Auckland dairy farm, David Seymour said the deal risks punishing New Zealand farmers for methane while shifting production offshore to higher-emitting countries.
Farmer groups are split. Groundswell wants to quit Paris entirely, arguing the pact is “destroying” rural communities and driving up food and energy prices. Federated Farmers, DairyNZ, and Beef+Lamb NZ take a more cautious line.
They say the problem lies in how New Zealand politicians have chosen to apply the rules, with ambitious methane targets, carbon forestry conversions, and looming emissions pricing, rather than in Paris itself.
Beef+Lamb chair Kate Acland welcomed ACT’s call for a split-gas approach. This means treating methane separately from carbon dioxide, since methane disappears from the atmosphere quickly while carbon dioxide lingers for centuries., arguing food production must be protected.
Associate Agriculture Minister Andrew Hoggard said farmers are already on track to cut methane 10 percent by 2030 without a price. “With all the technology that’s about, that will come about,” he said.
Critics counter that even if Paris provides “marketing cover” for exports, the underlying pressure on agriculture is homegrown.
Federated Farmers president Wayne Langford said, “The world hasn’t forced those policies on us; they’re self-inflicted products of our own politicians setting overly ambitious goals with no realistic way of achieving them.”
