The new government's ETS conundrum

The need to raise cash will put a new focus on ETS settings for finance minister apparent Nicola Willis. (Image: Getty)

Fri, 17 Nov 2023

There is a good chance that the last carbon auction this year will fail, just like the last three.At first blush, that may seem a bad thing.It is certainly a product of abrupt and unexpected changes the Labour government made last year that undermined confidence in the emissions trading scheme (ETS) and collapsed the price for New Zealand Units (NZUs) before a reset this year drove a partial recovery.NZUs are the equivalent of one tonne of carbon, with polluters having to hand over NZUs to settle their emissions.However, while carbon auction fa...

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