The Government Will Give $90 Million To Fonterra To Help Reduce The Use Of Coal In Its Dairy Operations

The Government will give $90 million to Fonterra, one of New Zealand’s largest greenhouse gas emitters, to help reduce the use of coal in its dairy operations. Prime Minister Chris Hipkins was supposed to announce the subsidy at Fonterra’s Hautapu site in the Waikato today but the shooting in Auckland’s CBD put paid to that. Fonterra, has committed to reducing coal use across six manufacturing locations, which is estimated to see an earlier CO2 reduction of about 2.1 million tonnes – the equivalent of removing about 120,000 cars from the road. For its part Fonterra will implement an emissions reduction campaign across its entire organisation with a special emphasis on coal processing units for dairy. The $90m is from the Investment in Decarbonising Industry Fund which is funded by the Emissions Trading Scheme. Fonterra is responsible for about 30% of global dairy exports, with a total investment budget of about $790m to reach the updated decarbonisation goal.