WEBVTT - Solving the climate crisis - Are more trees actually the answer? 0:00:05.600 --> 0:00:06.080 Kyota. 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:09.400 I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a 0:00:09.520 --> 0:00:16.680 daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. The government's 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:21.160 likely to pass a law banning farm to forest conversions 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:25.279 to protect productive farmland for food production. It'll mean a 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:29.400 restriction on planting forests on high quality land and it's 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:34.560 a response to the previous government's emissions reduction plan. Agriculture 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:39.080 Minister Todd McLay has emphasized the need to protect productive farmland, 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:44.320 maintain food security and ensure that forestry expansion doesn't come 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:49.800 at the expense of agriculture and rural livelihoods. But have 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:54.800 we placed too much importance on planting trees anyway? And 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:58.800 should we be focusing on other efforts elsewhere? Today on 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:03.560 the front page of Canterbury Emeritus Professor David Norton is 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:06.360 with us to break down what this all actually means 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:12.399 and whether we'll be able to meet our ambitious climate targets. 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:18.080 First off, David, can you tell us what farm to 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:20.679 forest conversions actually are? 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:23.360 Yep. But it's a good question because it's often quite 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:27.560 confusing and essentially a company that could be a New 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:31.040 Zealand company, it could be an overseas company purchases a farm, 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:34.240 typically a sheet and beef farm, and they plant the 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:38.880 whole farm up in fast growing exotic trees, usually pineous radiata, 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:41.440 for carbon sequestration purposes. 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:45.640 And so what is carbon farming? Is that the planting 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:48.600 of the pine to offset carbon emissions. 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:52.680 Yeah, it's not to offset carbon emission. So carbon farming 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:56.000 is basically the process of planting up a farm in 0:01:56.240 --> 0:02:00.280 fast growing exotic trees with the objective to seque to 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:04.240 carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and to earn money 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:08.480 from doing that. And yeah, it is called offsetting because 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:13.919 somebody who is producing emissions, a company that's using petrol, diesel, whatever, 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:17.239 can then buy those credits to offset their emissions. 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:20.920 So what's the main evidence for the government wanting to 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:24.600 restrict farm to forestry conversions. 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:28.280 Yeah, so the reason why they brought the restrictions in 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:32.480 is because of concerns within the farming sector that good 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:36.400 quality farmland was being taken out of farming and put 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:40.000 into carbon forests. The difficulty with carbon forests is that 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:41.760 they are a permanent land used they have to be 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:44.480 there forever, because once you've drawn that carbon down from 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:48.120 the atmosphere, it needs to stay in those trees and perpetuity, 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:51.399 so it rules out any opportunity to go back into 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:53.880 farming on that land again. So I think the biggest 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:58.760 concern that drove this change was that desire to restrict 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:02.919 that that sort of locking up a potential farmland for 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:06.040 the future. In the proposal, it restricts it that you 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:08.280 can't do it on land News classes one to five, 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:11.160 and there's a limit on land News Class six as well. 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:13.880 Well. That leads me on to my next question, Actually, 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:18.000 how do we determine what is high, medium and low 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:19.000 quality land? 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:23.280 Yeah, so there's a national system that ranks all land 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:27.360 in New Zealand on its productivity essentially, and so the 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:30.200 most productive land would be land that's used to say cereal, 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:33.720 you know, wheat growing and other crops horticulture, right through 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:36.280 to the least productive land, which would be land that is, 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:39.120 you know, might only graze one or two stock units 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:42.640 per hecta. That's very very low productivity. And so the 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:46.240 idea of the regulations was to limit the conversion of 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:51.040 high quality or highly productive farmland to pine trees and 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:54.840 restrict that largely at lower productivity hill country, steeper hill 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:55.760 country farmland. 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:59.280 That doesn't do anything to alleviate the fears of beef 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:02.160 and sheep far as though, does it. 0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:05.560 It shifts it more to the least productive end of 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:09.600 the spectrum. So the better downlands lower hill country lands 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:12.560 has certainly got much more restrictions on it. Yes, so 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:14.840 it does alleviate it to some degree, but there is 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:17.359 still a lot of concern in the farming community. I understand. 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:20.039 Yeah, because I saw in October last year, we saw 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:24.279 the closure of alliance groups meat processing plant and Timoru, 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:27.440 affecting about six hundred jobs, and fed farmers at that 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:31.680 time pointed to land use changes, including the conversions to forestry, 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:36.200 as a contributing factor. Obviously the forestry industry disputed this. 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:40.120 But in a situation like this, do the environmental gains 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:44.880 outweigh I guess the jobs in rural communities. 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:48.719 From my perspective anomen ecologist, that there are no environmental 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:52.160 gains in doing this. I actually think carbon farming is 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:58.960 a flawed process. It's basically a small group of people 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:00.920 trying to make a lot of money in a short 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:04.039 period of time with zero consideration for the future. 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:06.840 Yeah, because you've made a good point before, as well, 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:11.040 to my understand my very basic understanding is that when 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:14.919 you come in and plant these pine forests, it's like 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:18.799 one hundred year commitment. You have to be doing it consistently, 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:22.960 cutting them down regrowing for it to be any good. 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:26.640 Right, Okay, Two, there's really good question, and there's two 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:29.719 important points in there. A lot of these farm to 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:33.640 forest conversions are not being managed for sustainable timber supply. 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:37.960 They're simply being planted for carbon and then basically the 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:41.240 owners walk away and leave them. That's very different from 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:45.640 a production plantation forest that's been managed on sustainable rotation 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:49.360 to produce timber every thirty twenty five thirty years on 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:53.040 an ongoing basis. So most of these farm to forest 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:57.080 conversions are simply being planted up. They sequest a carbon 0:05:57.160 --> 0:05:59.720 for twenty thirty forty years, and then they have to 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:03.080 be in the ground because that carbon has been sequested. 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:05.760 They're not being managed into the future, and they impose 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:10.760 massive economic and environmental liabilities on us as we move 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:12.000 into future generations. 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:16.599 Why aren't they planting native species? Why is it always 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:18.520 pine and exotic species. 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:21.919 That's a great question, and the reason is that the 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:25.239 whole emissions trading scheme that this is all working through 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:30.480 is set up to make pines the favored outcome, and 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:35.800 the incentives are all completely twisted and counter against native forests. 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:38.680 And I mean, I think it's really important to recognize 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:41.640 that people are getting rich, making a lot of money, 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:44.400 getting rich over a short period of time from carbon credits. 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:47.160 They get their credits and they can forget about that forest. 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:49.760 But someone's got to make sure that carbon stays in 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:51.600 the ground in the future. And if the investors are 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:53.719 taking their money and gone, then it's going to be 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:56.520 future generations in New Zealand that are responsible for looking 0:06:56.560 --> 0:06:59.400 after that carbon that's been stored there, because it's supposed 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:02.479 to be storedly. But at the same time, we know 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:05.200 that these pine forests are not adapted to the New 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:08.240 Zealand environment. They won't maintain themselves, they will collapse, They 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:12.800 will be sources of diseases, of dare of pa species. 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:15.640 And you know, we saw what happened in cyclone Gabriel, 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:18.800 We saw what happened to Nelson Tasman a few weeks ago. 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:22.760 You know, these forests are imposing massive environmental liabilities on us. 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:27.520 And what we need is we need diverse native forests 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:31.520 established across the landscape into woven into farming systems, not 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:35.880 replacing farming, but into woven's farming systems. Unfortunately, the ETS 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:39.480 is stacked against that. It just doesn't make it possible 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:41.280 at the moment. This is what the Parliamentary Commissioner for 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:43.800 the Environment said and his report recently. You know, the 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:46.800 whole system is wrong. It's set up against natives. 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:51.840 So what you're saying is we are going to have 0:07:51.920 --> 0:07:54.320 higher emissions leading up to twenty thirty because of your 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:55.200 governments policies. 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:57.280 We're going to have that accurate? 0:07:57.680 --> 0:07:58.280 Nor what is that? 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:03.160 Is that accurate? What is that is that accurate? Will 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.760 New Zealand have higher emissions than we would have under 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:08.440 the previous government? Under your government in the period leading 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:09.280 to twenty thirty? 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:10.080 What is accurate? 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:12.520 It is to say that the missions profile, the plan 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:15.200 that we have put in place will enable us to 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:17.720 meet our budgets for the period ending to it. 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:19.520 It's not the question I asked though, But the question 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:22.800 I asked is under your government's policies, will our emissions 0:08:22.840 --> 0:08:25.120 leading up to twenty thirty be higher than they would 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:26.520 under the previous government. 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:30.320 Technically, in the region of about one point five mega 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:35.319 tons of point of difference by the end, So thirty. 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:44.520 Does our emissions reduction plan rely too heavily on forestry. 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:49.720 Absolutely. What we're doing is we're basically saying, keep producing emissions, 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:51.920 you can offset them. But actually what we need to 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:54.199 be doing is cutting our emissions, and the emissions reduction 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:56.840 plan isn't doing that, is just relying on fast growing 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:00.200 trees to push the problem out into the future, not 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:01.880 addressing the missions reductions at all. 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:05.480 So the coalition brought in the removal of agriculture from 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:10.559 the ETS, and that was welcomed by farmers, criticized by environmentalists. 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:12.400 What do you make of this move? 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:15.000 Yeah, I mean I think what we need is we 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:19.400 need to separate out methane, which is what livestock are 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:23.200 producing from all the other all Carton dixide, which is 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:25.640 from petrol and diesel and all that stuff. And I 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:28.680 think we need to have a separate biogenic system where 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:32.000 farmers can offset their own emissions in their livestock on farm. 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:35.240 Methane behaves very differently to CO two and that should 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:37.720 be done in one system, and then there should be 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:41.280 a separate system that is focused on reducing our overall 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:45.280 CO two emissions from hydrocarbons, and the two should be 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:47.800 separated out and dealt with quite separately. 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:57.920 What alternatives are there and it should we be focusing 0:09:58.000 --> 0:09:58.600 on more? 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:00.800 Yeah, I think what we should be doing in New 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:04.000 Zealand from my perspective is quite simply. We should have 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:09.000 a standalone biogenic methane system for farmers and they can 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:11.680 plant woodlots on their farmers, they can use native vegetation 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:16.520 to offset their methane productions. We need to have genuine 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:19.920 tools in place that guarantee we reduce emissions. We're not 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:22.199 reducing emissions. We've got to bring our emissions down less 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:25.320 fossil fuels, and we need to be building landscape resilience, 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:29.559 and that by building landscape resilience, by planting diverse native forests, 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:33.200 by establishing more native wetlands, we can sequest a draw 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:35.800 carbon down from the atmosphere. But we can also make 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:37.640 sure that we don't get the damage we've got in 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:40.760 cyclone Gabriel and damage we've got in Nelson and other 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:43.240 parts of New Zealand. I'm involved with a project called 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:46.720 rec Cloak and papatuar Nuku which pure advantage are not 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:50.040 for profit has been developing which is aiming to restore 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:53.439 two million hectas of native forest and wetland across New Zealand, 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:57.800 interwoven into our primary production landscapes and not replacing farming, 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:02.280 but part of farming. Are rewarded for looking after native 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:05.960 forests and establishing new native forests for all of those benefits, 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:10.120 you know, cultural biodiversity, resilience, carbon draw down and so forth. 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:13.720 Well that kind of sounds like a win win, doesn't it. 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:16.920 Why aren't we making So if I was a dairy farmer, say, 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:20.040 is there a way that so I've got my fifty cows? 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:23.280 Say I obviously have never visited a dairy farm, so 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:25.280 I don't know how many cows there are, But say 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:26.640 I've got fifty, probably. 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:27.840 A few more than fifty. 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:32.320 Can I then measure how much methane that they're producing 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:35.960 and then be like, right, it's this much. I need 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:38.680 to come up with a way to offset that on 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:41.959 my land, say with native forests and stuff, and then 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:44.600 kind of try and balance it out myself. Could I 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:45.600 essentially do that? 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:49.560 Absolutely? Look, the science is very very easy to use. 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:52.760 I mean, we know how much methanea cow producers, so 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:55.240 you could do that definitely, and I must say some 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:58.000 of the innovative dairy farmers are actually putting that information 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:00.920 out there in the public. They are acknowledging how much 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:03.920 they produce them. You can do the math, and you 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:05.240 may not be able to do it on your land 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:07.200 because your dairy farm might be too small, but you 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:09.440 could work with says sheet and beef farmer and you 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:10.800 could do it in a collaborative way. 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:13.520 Why don't we make farmers do that? 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:19.200 Then it's a good question. The politics. Yeah, I don't 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:20.400 have the answer to that one. 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:24.520 I wouldn't mind my tax money going, you know, giving 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:28.239 a few bob to farmers to create native farmlands. 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:30.600 Well, I think, you know, I mean, I think there 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:32.480 are lots of avenues that we could fund it through. 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:35.360 I mean, there's a lot of interest internationally in high 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:42.440 quality carbon and biodiversity credits, So people would be really interested, 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:45.240 I think in investing in New Zealand. We're a stable democracy, 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:48.040 We're a reliable country for that sort of work. But 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:50.920 farmers themselves, I mean, you know, they will at some 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:53.760 point need to offset their methane production so that the 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:56.840 incentive is for them to invest into their own land. 0:12:56.920 --> 0:12:59.320 But it's building resilience in their land, and it's helping 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:02.520 make their land more stable. It's got other benefits out 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:05.640 of it. I work with farmers dairy and she can 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:08.640 be farmers helping them designeration programs for their farms so 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:11.000 they can bring back native forest. I mean, there are 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:13.520 really great people out there doing this already. We just 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:17.080 need the national policy signals of a place to make 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:20.360 this reality. And I think for that we need to 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:23.520 acknowledge that we are being impacted by climate change. We 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:25.319 need to acknowledge that we need to have a national 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:28.760 resilience plan, of which, you know, putting native forests back 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:33.280 into landscapes as part of farming systems is a really 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:36.920 sustainable long term outcome. Pine trees a short term They're 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:40.040 not doing anything for the future. Native forest, native wetlands 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:43.480 are bringing all these other values and bi diversity who 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:45.959 we are as New Zealanders, you know, all these other 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:47.520 values back into our landscapes. 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:52.320 Of the two hundred odd countries in the world today, 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:55.600 it looks like we are the only one it's carbon neutral. 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:02.560 Actually that's not quite accurate. Batone is not carbon neutral. 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:11.240 We're doone is carbon negative. Our entire country generates two 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:15.360 point two million tons of carbon dioxide, but a forest, 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:20.000 they see question more than three times at amount. So 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:23.200 we are a net carbon zinc for more than four 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:25.520 million tons of carbon dioxide each year. 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:31.200 What about if we look overseas, are there any other 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:34.880 countries that are focusing you know, not as much on forestry, 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:37.520 I suppose, but are there any good projects that we 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:38.920 should be really keeping an eye on. 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:42.640 There's a range of different initiatives being taken in different 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:47.840 countries and different ways of incentidvising and encouraging people to 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:50.880 get involved in these sorts of projects. But I actually 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:54.320 believe that New Zealand has the opportunity to show other countries. 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:56.760 So turning it around, we have the opportunity to show 0:14:56.800 --> 0:14:58.840 other countries how we can do this sort of stuff. 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:01.640 We're a small country, we're innovative. We just need to 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:04.480 get out of this mindset at the moment of just 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:07.440 focusing on today and actually think about the future. And 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:11.400 we've got huge credibility, scientific background in this stuff. We 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:14.000 know how to do it. We just need the political 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:16.000 will behind that to support it. 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:20.680 Do you think farming and forestry voices are equally represented? 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:23.360 It's interesting, you know, I hate to think what's going 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:28.640 on behind the closed doors in Wellington and who's influencing what. 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:31.440 What's not being represented is the voice of the environment, 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:34.840 and that's my real concern is that the environment has 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:37.280 not been listened to. I think I work with a 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:40.480 lot of farmers, and my impression is that farmers are 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:43.680 really interested in looking after the land, are really interested 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:48.000 in a sustainable outcome. They get the impact that climate 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:50.960 change has on their businesses on their land, and they're 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:52.880 in it for the long term. Farmers are in it 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:56.000 for the long term, and I think we just need 0:15:56.040 --> 0:15:59.000 to have the right incentives there to help a system 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:02.240 with even those sorts of outcomes that I've talked about. 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:06.240 I mean, the Climate Change Commission last month warned that 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:10.000 while we're making progress and emissions are on track to 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:12.720 meet the first budget that's twenty twenty two to twenty 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:16.680 twenty five, we still need to urgently do more work. 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:19.160 At the rate we're going. Do you think that we're 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:21.960 going to meet our Paris climate commitments? 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:27.520 No? No, from everything I've seen, we're not. We're still 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:31.160 consuming too much, We're still using too much, We're still 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:34.040 we're still living in today. We're not thinking about tomorrow, 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:36.200 and I think we're struggling, and I think relying on 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:39.480 offsetting with short lived pine trees is just a massive mistake. 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:40.960 It's just pushing the problem off. 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:43.520 Has this latest move set us back a bit? 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:46.840 I think it's just simply carrying us down a I 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:49.000 think a Dedan street, and I think we need to, 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:53.200 like Simon Upton said the Parliamentary Commission of the Environment said, 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:56.400 we need to radically overhaul the ets. We need to 0:16:56.720 --> 0:17:01.480 shift fast growing exotics into the BID methane system, and 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:05.440 we need to start putting in place an approach that's 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:09.240 based around using native forest of long term enduring carbon 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:11.879 sequestration is going to be there forever of all of 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:15.040 the other benefits for the landscape, for people, for bid diversity, 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:17.680 But the government doesn't seem to be interested in that. 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:20.120 And that's a real tragedy, I think, because the people 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:21.320 that are going to suffer are going to be the 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:23.800 next generation and the one after that and so on. 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:27.800 Thanks for joining us, David, You're welcome, Thanks for inviting me. 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:34.600 That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:38.560 can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:42.639 at enzidherld dot co dot MZ. The Front Page is 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:46.399 produced by Ethan Sells and Richard Martin, who is also 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:51.080 our editor. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:54.800 on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:58.160 in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.