New Zealand is proposing ambitious new targets to cut the country's non-agriculture carbon emissions to zero by 2050.

Key points: The Meat Industry Association says the agriculture targets can only be reached by cutting herds

The Meat Industry Association says the agriculture targets can only be reached by cutting herds Greenpeace says the bill does not go far enough because there is no mechanism to address noncompliance

Greenpeace says the bill does not go far enough because there is no mechanism to address noncompliance Almost half of New Zealand's emissions come from agriculture

However farmers are angry the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill also requires them to cut methane emissions.

"This decision is frustratingly cruel because there is nothing I can do on my farm today that will give me confidence I can ever achieve these targets," Andrew Hoggard, vice president of New Zealand's Federated Farmers, said.

Tim Ritchie, chief executive of the Meat Industry Association, said the emission cuts were not possible with current technology and reductions could only be achieved by cutting herds.

"This will impose enormous economic costs on the country and threaten many regional communities who depend on pastoral agriculture," he said in a statement.

A country of around 5 million people, New Zealand is also home to more than 10 million cows and around 28 million sheep.

Almost half the country's carbon emissions come from biological methane emissions produced by the agriculture industry.

The bill would require biological methane emissions to be reduced by 10 per cent by 2030, followed by another provisional reduction of between 24 and 47 per cent by 2050.

"That provisional range will be subject to review by the independent Climate Change Commission in 2024, to take account of changes in scientific knowledge and other developments," Climate Change Minister James Shaw said.

The bill, which still needs to be approved by the NZ Parliament, says the lower targets for methane reduction reflect that methane stays in the atmosphere for a much shorter time than carbon dioxide.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the Government had listened to the industry when devising the targets, but cuts were necessary to limit global warming.

"Agriculture is incredibly important to New Zealand, but it also needs to be part of the solution," Ms Ardern said.

"That is why we have listened to the science and also heard the industry and created a specific target for biogenic methane."

Beef + Lamb New Zealand, which represents the country's cattle and sheep sectors, said the Government was expecting farmers to carry a heavier load than other industries.

"It's unreasonable to ask farmers to be cooling the climate, as the Government's proposed targets would do, without expecting the rest of the economy to also do the same," the group's chairman Andrew Morrison said.

Environmental groups are not happy either.

Russel Norman, the executive director of Greenpeace New Zealand, said the bill would have little clout because there was no mechanism to hold anybody to account.

"What we've got here is a reasonably ambitious piece of legislation that's then had the teeth ripped out of it. There's bark, but there's no bite," he said.

A final vote is expected on the bill later this year.

Ms Ardern said the country had little choice but to act to avoid devastating climate change.

"We know the climate is changing. People can see that," she said.

"This legislation makes a start on tackling climate change because the alternative is the catastrophic cost of doing nothing."

The Government has also promised to plant 1 billion trees over 10 years and ensure the electricity grid runs entirely on renewable energy by 2035.

ABC/AP