2. Greenhouse Gas Emissions—Minister's Response to GLOBE-NZ's ReportJAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister for Climate Change IssuesGreenhouse Gas Emissions—Minister's Response to GLOBE-NZ's Report2. JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister for Climate Change Issues: Does the Government agree with the conclusions and recommendations in the Vivid report Net Zero in New Zealand: Scenarios to achieve domestic emissions neutrality in the second half of the century?Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Climate Change Issues): I think the Vivid Economics report is a valuable contribution to the debate about how best to tackle climate change but it looks very long term and also does not set out the costs of the various forms of reducing or offsetting emissions that it suggests. We need to look at that before we will know the combination of policies that will be best for New Zealand.James Shaw: Does she agree with the first conclusion—that staying within 2 degrees of global warming will require New Zealand getting to 98 percent renewable energy by 2050 as well as an 85 percent uptake of electric vehicles?Hon PAULA BENNETT: We already have a target of 90 percent renewable energy which compared with other countries is very high. I am advised that anything above 90 percent will mean we would need to have a lot more backup generation available. So whilst I do not disagree I am also excited about technology improvements that perhaps might come as well.James Shaw: Does she agree with the second conclusion—that staying within 2 degrees of global warming will require an alteration to our land-use patterns even if all of the scientific and technological research on reducing animal emissions is successful and fully implemented?Hon PAULA BENNETT: I certainly agree that we need to plant more trees and that that is an important part of tackling climate change in the future but we simply do not know what technological advances there will be in that case. We will be making them in the next decades on agricultural emission.James Shaw: Does she agree with the report's first recommendation—that a higher more predictable price on emissions would help to avoid locking in high emissions infrastructure that makes it impossible to get to a low-emission economy—and would she consider removing the current $25 a tonne price cap?Hon PAULA BENNETT: To the first part yes and that is why we removed the two for one". We have already seen the first third come off and that people will be paying the full emissions. As far as the cap is concerned that is part of the emissions trading scheme (ETS) phase two and that is being considered.James Shaw: Would she agree with recommendation two—that putting a price on biological emissions from agriculture would encourage land-use decisions that take emissions intensity into account?Hon PAULA BENNETT: I do not believe we should be bringing agriculture into the ETS at this time. As I have said we need to balance the need to reduce emissions with the fact that our farmers are so important to global food supply and in fact at this time feed more than 40 million people around the world.James Shaw: Does she agree with recommendation nine—that an area for further policy development is addressing the distributional implications of differing low emissions scenarios; in other words adjust transition to protect people's incomes and livelihoods?Hon PAULA BENNETT: Yes I do. I do agree with that. I think we need to look at what the offsets are what the real costs are and how we can get that right balance.James Shaw: Does she agree with recommendation six—for an independent climate commission based on the UK model to guide policy settings towards a net zero carbon economy?Hon PAULA BENNETT: No I do not agree with that at this time. I think the UK was in a different place on climate change when it did it. But I must say that this report and the work that is going on with Global New Zealand lead us to more of an all-of-Parliament approach which I think is really important for this debate."