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Speaker 1: So the government's unveiled the country's second emissions reduction plan.

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Speaker 1: This covers the period from twenty twenty six to twenty

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Speaker 1: thirty and this is apparently so ambitious. We're going to

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Speaker 1: meet our net zero twenty fifty target by twenty forty four.

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Speaker 1: The Climate Change Minister at Simon, what's morning, Simon?

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Speaker 2: Very good morning, Simon.

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Speaker 1: What's the magic trick here? What's the thing that you're

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Speaker 1: doing to get it down so quickly?

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Speaker 2: Well, we're actually working with industry and business and we're

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Speaker 2: not just morsing and trying to write a tech from government.

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Speaker 2: We've got a number of initiatives across key sectors agriculture,

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Speaker 2: transport and also energy and at the end of the day,

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Speaker 2: those initiatives are going to allow us to hit our targets.

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Speaker 1: There is a little bit of reliance here on things

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Speaker 1: like methane busting technology which hasn't been proven yet. Are

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Speaker 1: we being a little hopeful.

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Speaker 2: No, We've been working with the industry, We're working closely

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Speaker 2: with the players that are involved. We've taken a conservative

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Speaker 2: position around that, but you know, we need a plan

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Speaker 2: that's practical and achievable and we're not into pie in

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Speaker 2: the sky. We've been very concerned around some of our estimates,

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Speaker 2: and we are confident the numbers we've got in there

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Speaker 2: are going to be the ones that are able to

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Speaker 2: be delivered.

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Speaker 1: What have you been conservative around, Well, well, we can take.

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Speaker 2: A good look at the risks around the different products

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Speaker 2: and the outcomes that they're going to achieve, and we

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Speaker 2: know that there's a lot of unknowns in that space

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Speaker 2: and we've taken a midpoints around some of those estimates.

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Speaker 2: Our conversations with a number of these products, including some

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Speaker 2: most or a lot of them that are made and

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Speaker 2: being produced in New Zealand is that you know they

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Speaker 2: are coming and are coming pretty soon and that's going

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Speaker 2: to have a big impact for us.

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Speaker 1: But also importantly how economy have we brought down the cost?

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Speaker 1: How much we're going to pay other countries to plant

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Speaker 1: trees for us.

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Speaker 2: What we've done is we've introduced and we've made announcement

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Speaker 2: last week Minnis maclay and I around looking at a

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Speaker 2: forestation on crown land. We've got a lot of crown

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Speaker 2: land that is not being utilized at the moment and

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Speaker 2: we see an opportunity there for us to work with

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Speaker 2: a private sector to do that. We've also put some

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Speaker 2: caps in regards to forestry on productive farmland, which we

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Speaker 2: said we'd do at the election, and a combination of

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Speaker 2: those policies is going to help us achieve our targets.

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Speaker 1: Right, So instead of paying others to plant our trees,

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Speaker 1: we plant our trees on crownland ourselves.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, all we've said is we want to work with

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Speaker 2: a private sector to utilize unutilized crown land to plant trees.

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Speaker 2: And some of that benefit will benefit our climate targets,

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Speaker 2: but also more importantly, it'll benefit our economy through more

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Speaker 2: forestry products and more forestry except so, have you got.

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Speaker 1: An update because the last update on how much it

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Speaker 1: was going to cost us to pay the other countries

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Speaker 1: to plant the trees for us was twenty four bill

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Speaker 1: by twenty thirty. What's it now?

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Speaker 2: So the number in the plan is that number is

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Speaker 2: down to around eighty four a million ton gap. It

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Speaker 2: was one hundred and one million when we did the

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Speaker 2: draft plan. It's still significant gap and the focus has

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Speaker 2: been by this government this plan is on our domestic

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Speaker 2: targets and what we can do in that regard. Obviously

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Speaker 2: we're going to put thought to the international target. But

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Speaker 2: my objective from the Prime ministers to make sure that

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Speaker 2: we're on track for what's in New Zealand law, and

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Speaker 2: the plan that we've released the day will achieve that.

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Speaker 1: Simon Not my maths isn't awesome, But that sounded to

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Speaker 1: me like it's about eighty percent. The gap is about

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Speaker 1: eighty percent of what it was and eighty percent of

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Speaker 1: twenty four billion would roughly about twenty billion. So we're

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Speaker 1: still facing a bill of about twenty billion dollars.

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Speaker 2: Yet no, no, we're not going to face a bill

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Speaker 2: of that scale. There is a significant number of options

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Speaker 2: that we are going to have to consider around how

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Speaker 2: we do that the price in order to achieve that

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Speaker 2: in the way in which we achieve that, there is

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Speaker 2: a variety of options. But look, the government tends to

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Speaker 2: meet its target. Yeah, this plans focused on our domestic stuff,

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Speaker 2: which is in our domestic law and we're on track for.

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Speaker 1: So if the bill is not twenty four billion or

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Speaker 1: twenty billion, what is it.

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Speaker 2: We don't know the exact number because the reality is

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Speaker 2: there's still more work to be done in that space.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that did they not give you a little like

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Speaker 1: a little range of what it may possibly be.

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Speaker 2: But they didn't. They provide the gap in terms of

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Speaker 2: our target and what we're tracking, and that number has

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Speaker 2: been updated, but the fiscal aspect is a significant step

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Speaker 2: beyond that because there are so many unknowns.

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Speaker 1: Brilliant stuff, Simon, thanks for talking us, Sir at Simon,

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Speaker 1: Watt's climate change minister. Can't wait to see what that

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Speaker 1: bill is going to be.

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