Aotearoa just quietly bolted its trade with Europe to delivering on emissions reduction

The new trade deal ties our farmers in a much more concrete way to our emissions reductions targets. File photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty Images

TL;DR: For years, climate activists have told farmers they will have to reduce emissions anyway, or food importers will block their exports. Until now, that’s been a theoretical threat, or challenge.

Last night, Aotearoa signed a formal trade deal with the European Union that wrote in a commitment to deliver on our Paris Accord promises to reduce climate emissions, or be sanctioned. This is the first such deal New Zealand has done that writes that in to a trade deal, and also the first such ‘black letter’ deal done by the EU.

News elsewhere in our political economy today, here and overseas

• The Greens offered an olive branch to farmers with news on Saturday they could claim emissions credits for carbon sequestered in vegetation and wetlands;

• Grant Robertson talked for the first time late on Friday about the need for an EQC-style Government-subsidised insurance scheme for climate events;

• US jobs growth and wages over the weekend softened some of the inflation fears that pushed US bond yields higher, which is worth watching because it is flowing through to higher short-term fixed mortgage rates here.

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