Release: Huge hole in National’s climate budget

“Not content with a $2 billion dollar hole in their tax plan, National have a gap in their climate budget of millions of tonnes of pollution,” Labour Party Climate Change Spokesperson Megan Woods said.

“National will cut nearly every initiative that is reducing New Zealand’s emissions in order to fund their tax cuts. That will leave a hole in our emissions budget of millions of tonnes, for which we will need to buy billions of dollars of international credits, to meet our obligations under Paris Agreement signed by National.

“Ending the Clean Car Discount will set us back by nearly 3 million tonnes and stopping support to remove coal boilers from factories would likely see more than 3 million tonnes more.

“National will definitely miss New Zealand’s first emissions budget with those cuts. No policies they implement could have an impact quickly enough to make up the gap.

“Christopher Luxon’s preferred plan of relying on the ETS price going high enough to prompt action to reduce emissions will see the price of petrol go up.

“Official advice to the Government, and publicly available, shows relying on the ETS alone is the most expensive way to reduce emissions.

“Large emitters have told us the carbon price would need to go to $200 a tonne, which would equate to the cost of petrol rising by around 40 cents a litre, in order to replace the amount of emissions we are saving from deals to decarbonise industry. Relying on the ETS price rising puts the full cost on household budgets.

“It’s classic National; robbing Peter to pay Paul. Filling a 50 litre tank of petrol could go up around $20, more than what many households will get per week from National’s tax cuts,” Megan Woods said.

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