NEW Zealand's carbon market participants said the country could miss its climate goals after the National party, which has emerged as a strong contender to the ruling Labour party for the October elections, said this month that it will delay current plans to price agricultural emissions from 2025 to 2030 and restrict the conversion of farmland to carbon-based forestry.

The ruling coalition's policies on emissions from agriculture make it likely that New Zealand will fall short of fulfilling its 2030 Nationally Determined Contribution, or NDC, said Matt Raeburn, principal - climate change and sustainability, at WSP, an Auckland-based engineering consulting firm.

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"But National's intention to use only 'technology, not less production' to reduce emissions would make New Zealand even less likely to deliver on our NDC," Mr Raeburn added.

The policy will further delay the action that is required in reducing New Zealand's national emissions and likely require the country to offset even more of its emissions overseas to meet NDCs, said Sebastian Gehricke, senior lecturer and director at Climate and Energy Finance Group, University of Otago.

The government in October opened a consultation to price greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture sector, which currently contributes over half of New Zealand's gross emissions.

The framework, which was further relaxed in December due to strong pushback from farmers, is expected to come into effect from January1, 2025.

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National said that New Zealand farmers were among the most carbon efficient in the world but there was no technology widely available to reduce methane emissions.

"That means any environmental costs lumped on farmers will push up food prices or send production overseas to higher emitting countries," National said in its most detailed climate policy statement ahead of the elections.

There was a lack of evidence to support the fact that New Zealand farmers were among the most carbon-efficient, Mr Gehricke said.

Farming groups welcomed National's stance, with some adding that emissions can be reduced more effectively through new technologies such as methane inhibitors, vaccines and gene editing.

Mr Raeburn continued: "Methane vaccines and the like have been talked about for years and won't materialize in time, if they do at all."

The hold-up in the policy is only going to delay the pain coming for the farmers, Raeburn said, adding that it was not the farmers' fault that governments have incentivized dairy for decades.

The National had also said it will place limits on new conversions of farmland to forests to protect local communities and food production.

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The New Zealand ETS is forecast to drive the planting of between 410,000 hectares and 670,000 hectares of new forests by 2035, according to cabinet minutes.

The policy will include a moratorium on whole farm conversions to exotic forestry on high-quality land from 2024.

This will result in New Zealand missing its planting budget by 17,000 hectares a year, said president of the New Zealand Institute of Forestry, James Treadwell, adding that this will potentially mean the country will need to purchase offsets from overseas to meet its targets.

"The policy has caused a massive loss of confidence and some capital flight, so it is likely even lower areas will be planted, increasing the costs to New Zealand proportionally," Mr Treadwell said.