What does New Zealand need to do now to meet its targets?
To meet its Kyoto Protocol target, New Zealand will now have to buy $962 million of carbon credits (according to the Treasury, on trends to date) to offset its projected excess during the first Kyoto commitment period 2008-2012 (CP1) of 45.5 Mt.
This would be a legitimate way of meeting New Zealand’s CP1 commitment, and would amount to a liability of $131.2 million a year during CP1, or 0.1% of GNI (Statistics New Zealand: $126.846 billion for the year to 30 June 2006).
It is not a big liability considering that New Zealand committed 0.30% of GNI to overseas development assistance in the 2007 Budget. On the other hand, New Zealand’s projected Kyoto liability would be close to half of DOC’s budget.