My apologies, but an earlier version of this email was sent with with yesterday’s podcast. It now has today’s podcast. Bernard.
TL;DR: Cabinet hoped its tweaks to the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) at the end of last year would take some pressure off petrol prices and help the finances of the ‘squeezed middle’.
Instead, the move backfired by wrecking confidence in the upcoming ETS auction of the Crown’s credits1, reducing net Government revenues by just over $800 million, which made up almost a third of a $2.4 billion deterioration in the Budget deficit reported yesterday by Treasury.
It never rains, but it pours on climate change and climate policy. Yesterday, Lawyers for Climate Action NZ (LCANZI), announced it had launched legal action in the High Court challenging those tweaks on the ground the Government has breached its own Zero Carbon Act by refusing to accept the Climate Commission’s advice in a way that means Aotearoa will miss its emissions reductions targets.
Paying subscribers can find more analysis and detail below the paywall fold and in the podcast above on these climate stories, plus the other top stories this morning in Aotearoa’s political economy, with a special focus on housing (un)affordability, climate change (in) action and poverty (non) reduction. Subscribe now to join our community supporting this journalism in the public interest. Paying subscribers can comment on Substack and in our community group Chat.
Today’s top stories in our political economy this morning
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