Overview
The introduction of an emissions trading scheme (ETS) raises measurement issues for a national statistics office. There has been considerable thinking internationally on how to best reflect schemes of this type.
Measuring the Impact of the Emissions Trading Scheme in Official Statistics outlines where and how the impacts of an ETS scheme in New Zealand will be shown in the current Official Statistics System (OSS), as well as informs readers on the conceptual options available to measure the ETS.
An earlier version of this paper was submitted to the Advisory Committee on Economic Statistics (ACES) on 30 October 2008. That draft outlined the understanding of the proposed emissions trading scheme (ETS) at that time, and the options for treatment of the emissions trading within current statistical frameworks. ACES was advised that the operational aspects of the ETS were not yet finalised and many questions remained. Therefore, the treatment outlined in the earlier paper was based on current knowledge at the time but could change as further information was obtained.
Full international consensus on operationalising the treatment of ETS and the like has not yet been reached. However, this paper updates the earlier thinking and presents recent international perspectives. Users will be informed when final decisions are reached.
Key features to note about the measurement of the impact of the ETS are:
- ETS transactions between residents and non-residents are currently treated as intangible non-produced non-financial assets in the Balance of Payments (BoP) statistics.
- Individual transactions in derivatives associated with carbon emissions will be captured in the BoP statistics but will not be separately identifiable from other financial derivatives.
- The international treatment of emissions trading in the National Accounts is still being decided.
- The impact of the emissions trading will not be captured directly in the current suite of National Accounts (and related) measures, although they will be indirectly captured in many of the National Accounts data sources. It will be difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish the impact of the ETS scheme on the National Accounts from that of other factors.
- Environmental measurement statistics will be undertaken by agencies other than Statistics New Zealand (eg the Ministry for the Environment will measure the rate of emissions in the Greenhouse Gas Inventory and changes in land use via the Land Use and Carbon Analysis System (LUCAS)).
- These environmental measures will record changes that may arise from the ETS scheme, but not its economic effectiveness.
- Greenhouse gas emissions and energy efficiency have been identified as core topics in the finalised energy domain plan and environmental domain plan currently under development.
- The purchase of emissions units will not directly appear in the current suite of price indexes (consumers price index, producers price index).
- Indirect price impacts from the operation of the ETS scheme will be captured, but the attribution of how much of a price change is due to the operation of the ETS scheme will not be possible.
- The Annual Enterprise Survey (AES) will capture some information, but under the current questions this data will not be identifiable.
Statistics NZ invites comments on any issues raised in this paper (email to John.Morris@stats.govt.nz).