Details of how the Govt will fight climate change to finally be revealed
The details of the government's long-awaited climate change laws will finally be unveiled this week. NZ First and the National party slowed progress on the contentious legislation over concerns emissions targets would hurt their farming voter base. Stuff revealed a breakthrough last week , with a deal struck over a negotiated "split gas" target, which would see methane treated differently from other long-lived gases, like carbon. Climate Change Minister James Shaw is set to reveal more details on Wednesday. READ MORE: * NZ First slows climate change law * How eliminating sheep burps and cow pee could slow global warming * What is the NZ Government's Zero Carbon Bill and will it do anything? * Methane emissions deal kick starts climate change legislation That's ahead of a major speech and pre-Budget announcement by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in Taranaki on Thursday. The government is holding the inaugural Just Transition Summit in New Plymouth, to work out how to move to a low emissions economy. The summit was announced in the wake of the government's decision to end oil and gas exploration. She'll be joined by Midnight Oil musician, environmentalist and former Australian Minister for the Environment Peter Garrett. Ardern put a stake in the ground by declaring climate change her generation's nuclear-free moment in 2017. The Zero Carbon Bill was originally scheduled to be in law by April of 2019, with the entire legislative process long behind it. The bill was an attempt to de-politicise climate change action. It will establish an independent Climate Change Commission with the power to set emissions targets for New Zealand. Successive governments must then work out how to meet them. It's an approach that was successful in Britain, where emissions dropped to 42 per cent below 1990 levels. Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, New Zealand agreed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. The Government set a net zero carbon target for 2050. But there has been political wrangling over how to treat different emissions. Carbon dioxide, from industry and transport, and nitrous oxide, mainly from synthetic fertilisers and animal manures, remain in the atmosphere for much longer than methane, produced mainly by belching livestock. New Zealand's methane emissions are six times the global average. Farming groups would prefer to stabilise methane levels - environmentalists want them slashed. Targets on nitrous oxide will also have an impact on how farmers use nitrogen fertilisers. There has also been concern about how much power an independent Climate Change Commissions will have to set targets. It's understood farming lobby groups were briefed by Ardern on Monday. Other stakeholders, like the Sustainable Business Council have been invited to Parliament on Wednesday. Last week NZ First leader Winston Peters said his party's supporters would be happy with the deal.