Damien O'Connor says the Government's new proposal to tackle emissions will reduce New Zealand's methane discharge - but can't say by how much.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Tuesday unveiled the world-first "levy" which will be slapped on the agriculture sector to pay for emissions.
While the plan has proved contentious among farmers with many expressing their concerns, Agriculture Minister O'Connor appeared unfazed on Wednesday.
O'Connor told AM farmers understand why the Government is taking the steps.
It comes after Federated Farmers said the plan would "rip the guts out of small-town New Zealand".
Speaking to AM's Ryan Bridge, O'Connor said putting a price on emissions would provide incentives for farmers to reduce them.
"Those incentives and those messages usually go fairly clearly out to farmers and they adapt to take up the technologies that will be available."
But he couldn't say exactly how much global methane emissions would be reduced under the proposal.
"I think the direction of travel is the important thing; 48 percent of our emissions, as a country, come from agriculture," O'Connor told AM. "We don't have to reduce methane to zero at all, we've set a target of [a] 10 percent reduction in methane by 2030 - I think that's quite achievable with the existing technologies.
"As a country, we're a small portion of total global emissions… As an innovative food-producing nation, if we develop techniques to reduce methane and livestock production across the globe, it could have a massive impact - that's what we're focusing on."
When asked whether the proposal was just "gobbledygook", O'Connor said, "If you look at what global warming is doing to our farming systems… we have to do what we can to be part of a global movement to reduce our total emissions".
O'Connor went on to say New Zealand's methane emissions couldn't be ignored.
"We're just proposing - and it's out for consultation - a price on emissions that will send a signal that incentivises farmers to reduce emissions. I think they can do it and they will do it."
Speaking to AM after O'Connor, Dairy New Zealand chair Jim van der Poel said although the proposal may reduce total emissions, all it was doing was pushing them overseas to less climate-friendly countries.
"We understand the principle that New Zealand has committed to the Paris Accord but if we have leakage from New Zealand where production goes offshore to much less-efficient producers, that is not good for the world."
However, O'Connor disagreed with those concerns - saying they were based purely on assumptions.
