{"id":603956,"date":"2026-09-18T04:52:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T04:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/603956\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T04:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T04:52:11","slug":"opportunity-proposes-methane-trading-scheme-5b-climate-adaptation-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/603956\/","title":{"rendered":"Opportunity proposes methane trading scheme, $5b climate adaptation plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opportunity wants to explore an emissions cap-and-trade scheme for methane and will commit $5 billion to climate adaptation, it says.<\/p>\n

The party has released its full climate policy ahead of the 2026 general election, saying it is time to restore the cross-party consensus that led to New Zealand’s zero carbon laws.<\/p>\n

Its pledges include a $1 billion transition fund for industrial gas and coal users, and a $5 billion climate resilience fund to strengthen transport, energy and water networks against extreme weather.<\/p>\n

Similar funds existed under the previous government but were scrapped by the National-led coalition, which says it is still funding climate resilience through transport and other budgets, rather than an earmarked fund.<\/p>\n

The resilience fund would tag $500 million for “nature-based solutions” like restoring wetlands, while community groups and marae would also receive some of the funding for local projects.<\/p>\n

The party said it would also introduce tax write-offs for home and business energy improvements like EVs, batteries and rooftop solar.<\/p>\n

It confirmed its support for low-interest green loans administered by local councils – a policy proposed by Local Government New Zealand that has also been adopted by National, Labour and the Greens.<\/p>\n

Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong said the party rejected the “false choice between cutting emissions and keeping the lights on”.<\/p>\n

“A low-carbon future isn’t about doing without,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It’s about making our homes cheaper to run, our businesses more resilient, and our country immune to volatile global fossil fuel prices.”<\/p>\n

The Zero Carbon Act – which passed in 2019 with near-universal parliamentary support – had provided businesses and communities with long-term certainty.<\/p>\n

“We lost that certainty when the Coalition gutted the Act last year,” Wong said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

New Zealand’s agriculture industry produces large amounts of methane.<\/p>\n

RNZ\/Alexander Robertson<\/p>\n

The current Government has made multiple changes to the law without cross-party consensus<\/a>, including weakening the targets for methane emissions and no longer requiring domestic climate policy to align with New Zealand’s Paris Agreement pledges.<\/p>\n

The coalition also ruled out any future methane tax last year.<\/p>\n

Nearly half of New Zealand’s total emissions come from agricultural methane – a short-lived but potent greenhouse gas that farming lobby groups argue should be treated differently to long-lived emissions like carbon dioxide.<\/p>\n

Labour has also recently ruled out a methane tax, saying it would instead encourage farmers to adopt methane-busting technologies that are being developed in New Zealand and overseas.<\/p>\n

Opportunity said it wanted to back farmers to cut their emissions through technology, but would explore a “cap-and-trade market or levy structure” to reduce biogenic methane emissions.<\/p>\n

Asked whether that would entail a tax or levy on farmers and other producers of methane emissions, an Opportunity spokesperson said the design of such a scheme was “complicated and would need to be worked through”.<\/p>\n

However, it would likely include some “fair allocations to existing methane emitters”.<\/p>\n

Other likely characteristics included preventing emitters from saving their credits to use in future years, or trading them across to carbon credits or on a secondary market, the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

Climate spokesperson Kayla Kingdon-Bebb said the party was “deliberately open-minded about the design”.<\/p>\n

“Getting the incentives right for farmers and the wider food and fibre sector is critical,” she said.<\/p>\n

“We want to work through those questions with climate and agricultural experts, farmers, processors and industry rather than imposing a model before the evidence is clear.”<\/p>\n

The party is also proposing changes to the existing emissions trading scheme, to prioritise cutting emissions at their source rather than offsetting them through forestry.<\/p>\n

A recent Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment report concluded the scheme was “rudderless”<\/a> and was incapable of driving down emissions without wholesale changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Opportunity wants to explore an emissions cap-and-trade scheme for methane and will commit $5 billion to climate adaptation,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":["post-603956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}