Taking the Long View: National Climate Policy

The crucial Paris climate change talks are now four months behind us. The December talks were much in the news during the lead-up and all over the media at the time. But climate change is getting so little press now, you’d think it was problem solved. If only.

The good news coming out of the Paris talks is a legally-binding agreement of 196 countries to limit temperature rises to “well below” 2°C above pre-industrial levels, with efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C. The former limit is an attempt to stave off the worst of climate change impacts for us all. The latter is to give vulnerable countries some chance of survival.

Less encouraging is the knowledge that greenhouse gas emissions will have to drop 40 to 70 percent to achieve the 2°C goal and 70-95 percent for the 1.5°C goal by 2050 and go to zero net emissions to stabilize the climate.

Also not encouraging is the emission reduction pledges taken to Paris by participating countries. In total they would only hold the temperature increase to 2.7-3.5°C (depending on the model used). Luckily, the agreement requires countries to submit climate action plans with a review and update mandated every five years.

Outside the Paris talks, some encouraging things have happened.

In October, Canada’s Liberal Party won a landslide election victory over the Conservatives and is already taking steps to back off the previous government’s short-sighted and self-serving climate change policies.

In November, President Obama rejected the Keystone XL pipeline intended to take oil from Alberta’s tar sands to Texas refineries.

Across the Ditch, things have been looking up since the current government ousted its own leader. Australia joined a group at the Paris talks pushing for the 1.5°C limit, a decent thing to do given the vulnerability of our South Pacific Island neighbours to the effects of climate change.

New Zealand negotiators reluctantly supported this lower limit after the US was on board. This isn’t the only disappointing aspect of the Government’s climate change stance at the talks and, indeed, before and since.

New Zealand took an emission reduction target of 11 percent below 1990 levels to the talks, a pledge termed “unconscionably small” by one commentator. (If all governments put forward a similar pledge, global warming would likely exceed a catastrophic 3 to 4°C.)

If that isn’t enough, the Government’s current planned actions would achieve only a fraction of the pledged reductions. The rest would have to come from buying carbon credits on the international market, at a higher cost in the long run and at the taxpayers’ expense. Real innovation, job growth and green economy enterprises I guess will be left to other more enlightened nations.

Back at the talks, New Zealand won ‘Fossil of Day’ award from Climate Action Network International – on opening day no less! Their press release cited the “hypocrisy” of our prime minister and his “phony grandstanding”, supporting the abolition of fossil fuel subsidies while increasing government spending to assist the oil and gas industry by nearly 600 percent since taking office in 2008.

A rare appropriate step the Government took during Tim Groser’s reign was changing the name of his portfolio from minister for climate change action to minister for climate change issues. New Zealand’s lead role in research on agricultural emissions is to be lauded, but is at best too little (too late) and at worst a classic delaying tactic.

Dr David Hall, in his Thought Leader column on the Pure Advantage website, portrayed the essence of New Zealand’s position on climate change: “We cut corners, we mask liabilities, and we evade responsibility.”

The Government has appointed Paula Bennett as its new climate change minister. Asked if she has experience in this area, she said, “No, none at all.”

Finance Minister Bill English called the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s comprehensive report on the risk to our infrastructure from sea level rise “speculative” and said it would not be specifically factored into Government planning.

At the recent Petroleum Conference, Launch of Block Offer 2016, Minister of Energy and Resources Simon Bridges noted that oil and gas is a long-term game and one that the Government remains committed to. This at a time when we can safely burn just one-fifth of the world’s known reserves.

Long time sustainability advocate, David Orr wrote in Resurgence magazine, “We are now citizens of the Earth joined in a common enterprise with many variations. We have every right to insist that those who purport to lead us be worthy of the task. Imagine such a time!”

Orr’s call for such leadership was in 2003. In New Zealand, we’re still waiting.

Gord Stewart is an environmental sustainability consultant. He does project work for government, industry, and non-profit organisations.

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