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Commentary
The declaration of a climate emergency is only a sign of virtue if it is not backed by immediate and radical action to reduce emissions, argues Marc Daalder.
With the declaration of a climate emergency and a pledge to decarbonize the public sector by 2025 (or, as seems likely, make up the difference by spending millions of dollars on carbon offsets), New Zealand will have another heyday in international headlines as a climate leader.
But in reality we are so far behind that the government cannot tell me what impact a carbon neutral public sector would have on our annual emissions. Only eight of the 46 government agencies can provide complete and up-to-date data on their emissions.
The best estimate a spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s office could give me is that the government’s energy and transportation needs result in a whopping 483,000 tons of greenhouse gases a year, which seems like a lot until you realize that. we emit around 78.9. million tons per year as a country. In other words, the government has just pledged to reduce less than 1 percent of the country’s emissions by 2025, even as it notes in its own motion to declare a climate emergency that countries must cut emissions by almost half by 2030 to limit heating to 1.5 degrees. above pre-industrial levels.
New Zealand, for the record, will be nowhere near meeting the IPCC recommendation that countries reduce emissions to 45% below 2010 levels by 2030. By 2030, our net emissions will be just 6% below 2010 levels, according to Ministry projections. for the environment.
Lead by example
The government says its net zero public sector goal is leading by example.
That is true, and it is valuable to lead by example, but you cannot lead by example alone. Right now, the government is modeling what it wants us to do – buy electric vehicles, live and work in more energy efficient buildings, and reduce emissions in all other aspects of our lives – but it expects us to shoulder the burden without giving ourselves the tools. regulatory. to do it.
Take the case of Covid-19, an emergency of urgency and comparable magnitude that New Zealand has really handled well.
Imagine if, when our case curve became exponential at the end of March and cases of community transmission with no link to the border began to appear across the country, the government had chosen to ‘lead by example’ as it has done here . That would mean a shutdown for the public sector and a polite plea for the rest of the country to wash its hands and socialize away, but no legal requirement to stay home.
Obviously that wouldn’t have worked. Nor has the dependence of successive governments on behavior without regulatory intervention to reduce emissions changed. Transportation, which has been part of the Emissions Trading Scheme for over a decade, continues to experience the fastest growth in emissions of any sector.
And yet, while countries like the UK announce a plan to ban the import of fossil fuel vehicles by 2030, the government is nowhere to be seen in reducing emissions from transport.
Then there is agriculture, which accounts for almost half of our emissions. The government has delayed the entry of agriculture into the ETS until 2025, and even then it will receive such a high discount that farmers will only have to pay an extra penny per kilo of dairy solids. This is unlikely to encourage behavior change.
While the government falters, climate change is real and is only getting worse. Its impacts are being felt here as well and will continue to do so in the future. A new study for the Deep South Science Challenge has found that one in 143 households in New Zealand You could lose insurance by 2050 due to the impact of rising sea levels.
Despite this, we can and must make a difference.
While advocates of doing nothing will be quick to remind us that New Zealand accounts for only 0.2 percent of global emissions, they generally forget to point out that we have only 0.06 percent of the world’s population. We are emitting more than our share and contributing unevenly to the global problem of climate change.
It is also valuable to assume global leadership. But we risk losing not only the opportunity to be world leaders, but even the opportunity to be global followers of climate change. New Zealand can be excluded from a high-ambition summit of world leaders on climate change on the concerns of the international community that we are not doing enough to reduce emissions.
New Zealand’s clean, green picture is fading more and more to reveal the climate laggards that we really are. Of the 43 Annex I countries, which the UN defines as industrialized nations that have benefited the most from greenhouse gas emissions and therefore have the greatest obligation to reduce emissions, only 12 have seen an increase in emissions. net since 1990. New Zealand is one of them.
In fact, New Zealand has seen the second largest emissions increase (in percentage terms) among Annex I countries. And our emissions are still expected to rise through 2025, before beginning a slow decline that sees us well below our target of the Paris Agreement and the net zero target for 2050 enshrined in the Zero Carbon Law.
If this government truly believes that climate change is an emergency, then it is time to act as one. That means venturing beyond leading by example into true leadership.
What if we create a better world for nothing?
President of the Climate Change Commission Rod Carr recently told me that climate change is a problem that requires leadership to solve it.
“We need our leaders to lead. This is an occasion when the nature of leadership is to chart a path, to reassure people about the options that lie ahead, to create both a sense of urgent action and a sense of a better world, ” he said.
“This will not happen if people feel alienated and intimidated; they will not actively participate if they do not see the advantages, as well as some of the challenges that we will face if we do not move. Prepared to bet a position, having gathered some evidence, to later train and guide and reassure others on a journey. “
In this context, leadership means doing more than moving forward. The government is waiting for the Climate Commission to publish emissions budgets before setting its plans for emissions in a wide variety of sectors, including transportation and agriculture. But what is the harm of going hard and early now?
If policies end up not being ambitious enough, check them. If they are too ambitious, why would it be a problem?
As Carr told me, “If we look for the least chance of regret, I think bold early action on climate that leverages the community to walk with us will be very important. If we turn out to have overreacted a little.” Because technology breaks our way a little faster than we think, or behaviors change a little earlier than expected, so I prefer to live with that regret than with the alternative, which is to leave it longer and have more regret later “.
In 2009, when world leaders gathered in Copenhagen for what was then hailed as a landmark climate agreement (by the way, New Zealand surpassed its Copenhagen target by 27.7 million tonnes) – USA Today posted a cartoon of Joel Pett imagining a climate change denier challenging conference attendees.
Standing in front of a blackboard listing the benefits of addressing climate change, preserving rainforests, livable cities, healthy children, clean water and air, the man asks, “What if it’s a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing? “
Sometimes it seems that this government is that fictional climate denier in Copenhagen. “What if we don’t need to do as much as we think and create a better world for nothing?”
Surely that is preferable to the alternative.
