If the Clark government could be accused of trying to lead the world with its climate change policies, the Key Government has certainly gone to the tail end of the field.
Critics claim this Government could fall even further behind as previous climate change foot-draggers, the United States and China, start developing policies to curb emissions of greenhouse gases and Australia, to which the Government wants to link its policy, delays implementation of its emissions trading scheme (ETS) by a year.
A charge on carbon appears inevitable and is a key plank of the New Zealand Government's climate change policy.
But its implementation appears delayed by a review of the Clark government's ETS policy, with the review part of the National-led Government's confidence-and-supply agreement with Act New Zealand.
Even before that agreement, National had signalled the policy was in for major surgery.
Business, in particular, had complained it was too uncertain, that exporters were competing with countries which did not face the same financial constraints, and the way it was structured lumped prohibitive costs on agriculture in particular, yet they had few tools with which to reduce emissions.
Many farming groups have urged the review committee to delay the ETS as proposed by the previous government, until details and its impact became clearer or until new technology allowed greenhouse gases to be mitigated.
Federated Farmers has advocated it be scrapped altogether and replaced by forest planting incentives, a low carbon charge and climate-change incentives.
Industry also feared its impact.
Rio Tinto Alcan last year warned it could mean the closure of its aluminium smelter near Bluff and fuel companies have forecast a 7c a litre rise in the price of fuel and an 18% increase in electricity.
Even some of the scheme's biggest supporters appear to have accepted the need for some changes to the previous government's proposal.
The New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development has had little sympathy, especially for complaints from the agricultural sector, but even it now accepted a better international deal must be negotiated for New Zealand's biggest export sector.
Council chief executive Peter Neilson said the next round of international negotiations on climate change - set down for Copenhagen later this year - must put competing exporters on the same level as New Zealand exporters.
The risk was that dairy giant Fonterra, for example, could be competing for market share with countries that did not have additional costs associated with greenhouse gas emissions.
The potential financial impact of the previous ETS policy was huge.
According to some analyses, a dairy farm without forestry to offset its carbon emissions liability could face costs between 2010 and 2030 of about $500,000 at a carbon cost of $25 a tonne or nearly $1 million at $50 a tonne.
The council has previously accused farmers of not taking their responsibilities seriously and that they could reduce their emissions; now the council appears to be going in to bat for the rural sector.
Mr Neilson would also like to see the Copenhagen meeting change the rule relating to plantation forestry to reflect the fact harvested trees did not release carbon dioxide back in to the atmosphere and which allowed land use change for plantation forests provided another forest of similar size was planted elsewhere.
However, the message from Mr Neilson was that the rest of the world was addressing climate change, although Australia has delayed by one year until July 1, 2011, the implementation of its ETS.
Mr Neilson said by the time the policy passed through the lower and upper houses of the Australian Parliament, it could be 2013 or 2014 before the policy was implemented.
"Going on Australia's timetable is a formula for terminal delay," he said.
In recent weeks, United States President Barack Obama has reversed the previous administration's reluctance to address climate change.
He is expected to introduce an emissions cap and trade system.
Mr Neilson said a recent US court ruling determined that pollution was a federal issue, meaning the president has the power to pass such a Bill.
This had implications for other countries, with the United States telling the world's other large polluter, China, that it would impose a requirement that any imports must have equal carbon-reducing steps as US-produced products or face a financial penalty, Mr Neilson said.
That move had prompted China to work on pollution-mitigating policies so it would not face restrictions.
Europe has operated a cap-and-trade system since 2005 and since January 1, 2008, a cap on carbon emissions has been set at 6.5% below 2005 levels.
It has set a target of reducing emissions by 21% between 2005 and 2020.
Between 2005 and 2008, and 2008 and the end of 2012, member states drew up allocation plans for business sectors to determine total ETS emissions and emission allowances.
At the end of each year, sectors surrender allowances equivalent to their emissions, but companies which keep emissions below their allowances can sell any they have surplus.
Those that exceed their allowances must reduce emissions or buy extra allowances.
The message for New Zealand business was clear: If the western world was accepting a cap-and-trade system as its primary tool to reduce emissions New Zealand would lose credibility if it did not follow suit.
