Experts warn the latest changes to the act strip away accountability and fatally weaken New Zealand’s climate commitments, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s extract from The Bulletin.
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A major climate-law shake-up
The government this week announced sweeping reforms to New Zealand’s flagship climate law, dismantling key features of the Zero Carbon Act and further unravelling the cross-party consensus on climate policy. As Marc Daalder explains in Newsroom, under the proposal, the independent Climate Change Commission will no longer advise the government on how to meet its five-yearly emissions reduction plans (ERPs). Ministers will be able to amend or replace those plans at any time, without public consultation. The emissions trading scheme (ETS) will also be decoupled from New Zealand’s commitments under the Paris Agreement, meaning it will no longer have to align with the country’s international emissions targets. Watts said the changes were necessary because the system had become “unnecessarily complex and duplicative in parts”.
Oversight reduced
Some of the most controversial alterations relate to transparency and oversight: along with the elimination of the Climate Commission’s advisory role, its progress reports on climate adaptation will only be released once per five-year plan, rather than the current three times. Neither the commission nor government will be required to consult the public before setting new emissions budgets.
The moves follow earlier decisions to weaken methane-reduction targets and to rule out purchasing offshore carbon credits – despite the government’s ongoing Paris commitments. When asked if he was confident domestic technology could cut emissions fast enough on its own, Watts’ response was philosophical: “Can we be sure about anything in life? The reality is we’ve got to have options on the table. We’ve got a wide range of those at the moment.”
On Wednesday, the carbon price fell 18%, the second-largest single-day drop on record, a signal of “little faith on the part of carbon traders that the Government intends to seriously reduce greenhouse gas emissions”, Daalder writes.
Backlash from scientists
Prior to the latest changes, the Zero Carbon Act was already on life-support, with RNZ’s Kirsty Johnston writing in August that “the law has been hollowed out to little more than a husk. While its legal targets remain, nearly every policy designed to meet them has been scrapped, most without replacement.”
Climate experts reacted with dismay to the latest changes. Among the scientists reached by the Science Media Centre was James Renwick of Victoria University, a former climate change commissioner. He said removing the commission’s advisory role “does away with one of the fundamental reasons for having the Commission in the first place”. The change, he said, “sends a clear signal that this government is not serious about domestic emissions reductions.” Massey University’s Robert McLachlan said the system of checks and balances built into the law was “being tested to destruction” and that the commission’s advice was being sidelined “because the Government doesn’t like that information and advice.”
The collapse of a landmark accord
The Zero Carbon Act was the flagship achievement of the first Ardern government, a law hailed at home and overseas for its careful balancing of science, politics and public opinion. Crafted over a year of negotiation between Greens co-leader James Shaw and National’s Todd Muller, it passed unanimously through parliament in 2019. The law established the independent Climate Change Commission, set legally binding emissions budgets, and committed New Zealand to reaching net-zero emissions of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide by 2050, with a separate target for biogenic methane. The bipartisan consensus was seen as the law’s great strength, ensuring continuity across political cycles. Six years later, that compact seems well and truly broken.
