The Government has announced plans to make New Zealand the first nation in the world to fully fold agriculture into an emissions pricing scheme, with a comprehensive price on greenhouse gases introduced by 2025. It will do this by accepting an agricultural sector proposal to give it those five years to develop a farm-level pricing mechanism separate from New Zealand's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which the sector opposes. Farmers will pay no additional levies or charges in the meantime. An emissions trading scheme aims to cut emissions by charging companies a price for each unit of greenhouse gas produced, giving a financial incentive to them to reduce their contribution to climate change over time. Although the Government has been criticised for moving too slowly, the purpose of the plan is to help give certainty to farmers, investors and the economy as a whole, and allow the sector adjust to the new changes. Agriculture accounts for about half of all New Zealand's carbon emissions profile. The Government's plan rejects an earlier recommendation from the Interim Climate Change Committee to start pricing agriculture from as soon as next year.

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