Local schemes to help put private money into nature projects will soon be able to get a new endorsement to signal they meet NZ standards.
Voluntary nature and carbon market schemes measure the impact of environmental projects in “credits”, which investors can buy.
The government has announced plans to grow nature and carbon markets through an “endorsement pathway” for such schemes, as well as by opening public conservation land to private environmental projects.
The SMC asked experts to comment. Recent expert comments on NZ’s new biodiversity strategy are also available here.
Dr Marie Doole, Independent researcher and consultant, Director of Mātaki Environmental, comments:
“Voluntary nature markets promise sustained funding for conservation initiatives, and a way of measuring the difference that investment makes in a consistent, comparable, and verifiable way. Thousands of iwi and hapū, groups, landowners, and agencies toil endlessly across the motu safeguarding our precious species and ecosystems, and sustained funding through credits would be tremendously helpful – and supply would be high. Many groups are burned out and exhausted – the funding gap is real. Many such groups will not be able to serve international market expectations, so a domestic pathway could help distribute funds that are available to groups not set up to cope with the administrative burden of formal markets (if buyers could be convinced).
“On the face of it, it is difficult to see the downside – but that’s usually because demand is ignored among a range of other shortcomings.
“It’s critical to manage expectations – such markets rarely scale – they are likely to only ever be a small part of conservation investment overall. Further, even if they don’t scale, they often help justify the serious withdrawal of public investment in nature conservation (much like we are facing from the same funding envelope/s used to design the system).
“New Zealand is so heavily dependent on our natural heritage that no doubt funding innovation is needed, but its vital the big picture is kept in view, and we do not allow ourselves to be distracted when we well know that funding biodiversity as a public good is foundational. Credits must be additional to an effectively funded conservation system. That isn’t what is happening. Further, the inclusion of public conservation land raises a slew of other risks with long term consequences that will take time to unpack and understand.”
Jennifer Campion, Senior Lecturer, Te Piringa Faculty of Law, University of Waikato, comments:
Note: Jennifer Campion is researching voluntary carbon markets
“The Government’s endorsement of the role voluntary nature and carbon markets can play in addressing climate change highlights the reality that public funding alone cannot meet the scale of Aotearoa New Zealand’s climate and biodiversity challenges.
“However, voluntary carbon markets globally have faced persistent credibility concerns, including questions about whether claimed emissions reductions are real, durable, and additional (wouldn’t have happened without the project). Leakage (emissions shifting elsewhere) and double-counting are issues that may not be solved by alignment with existing standards.
“These markets have also been accused of greenwashing and allowing companies to offset emissions instead of reducing them. Ensuring the international schemes we endorse are high-quality and credible is critical.”
Dr Elizabeth Macpherson, Professor of Law & Rutherford Discovery Fellow (receives funding from Te Apārangi The Royal Society for Blue Carbon Futures in Aotearoa New Zealand: Law, Climate, Resilience), comments:
“The Minister’s announcement is consistent with the Government’s overall environmental policy approach – seeking to shift the burden of protecting and enhancing the environment to the private investment sector, rather than directly funding environmental restoration. It comes on top of recent announcements around enabling infrastructure and development under a more permissive resource management system premised on property rights, enabling pathways for mining and quarrying in significant wetlands, opening conservation land to development, and reducing requirements for local authorities to map areas of significant biodiversity.
“There are growing scientific and policy concerns about the effectiveness and fairness of voluntary carbon and biodiversity credit and offset schemes internationally, where the benefits of projects linked to these schemes were found to be false, unenforced, or unverified. International bodies have sounded alarms about the potential impact of these schemes on the rights of Indigenous peoples.
“Carefully designed and regulated carbon and biodiversity markets also have the potential to raise funding for vital restoration projects. Iwi and hapū Māori have important rights and interests and are already leading restoration projects in many of the places where crediting projects are envisaged. However, there are significant legal barriers to restoration – with costly and confusing permitting pathways under our highly fragmented environmental and natural resources laws.
“The Government is at least proposing an accreditation regime for ‘high-quality’ carbon and biodiversity credits, but the devil really is in the detail here. How does the Government measure quality? Who will be the ‘independent assurer’ of quality?
“The Government can’t just outsource environmental restoration to the private sector – it has a role to play in designing robust policy safeguards for voluntary markets and developing policy pathways for permitting restoration projects that are fit for Aotearoa’s purposes and respectful of the rights of its Treaty partner.”
Conflict of interest statement: “Elizabeth is also a barrister and has acted as lawyer and policy adviser for public and private sector and Indigenous peoples on matters related to environmental law and Indigenous rights and interests.”