The Kākā Project: Our anti-clima(c)tic election

The mainstream climate policy debate we thought we'd have after Cyclone Gabrielle has drained away into a dance of performative policies that weaponise voters' own delusions about climate action

Surely, we thought, Election 2023 would directly address the need for real climate emissions reductions policies and substantial mitigation costs such as building sea walls, flood banks and managed retreat. Instead? Crickets. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The Kākā

TL;DR: It was the moment we thought the penny had dropped. Would drop. Might drop. Or at least something real would happen.

The scale and destructiveness of Cyclone Gabrielle in Febuary shocked and traumatised many, and still does, especially after Cyclone Hale’s record deluge in Auckland just a few days earlier. Combined, the storms killed 11 and are projected to have caused $18.5 billion of damage to Government, council and private insurers, highlighting the potential costs of these more frequent and extreme events caused by climate emissions warming the planet, and the lack of preparedness to reduce the effects and pay for the costs.

So surely, we thought, Election 2023 would directly address the need for real climate emissions reductions policies and substantial mitigation costs such as building sea walls, flood banks and managed retreat. Instead? Crickets.

Apart from the Greens, TOP and Te Pāti Māori, the main two governing parties and ACT have actively either watered down or delayed policies that would be uncomfortable to median voters and farmers. The public debate has largely skated over climate matters, settling on the cosmetic issues of recycling and arguing around the key issues of public transport, incentives for emissions reduction and the non-pricing of agricultural emissions.

Both Labour and National went out of their way to stop cuts in speed limits for car drivers, and to reduce or abandon incentives to buy electric cars, and more importantly, reduce punishment for double-cab ute buyers. Both have also de-emphasised investment in active transport in favour of ‘repairing the potholes’ and avoiding accusations of declaring a ‘war on cars’.

The Kākā Project’s take

The Kākā has been viewing election debates through a lens of searching for the best policies to achieve an equitable and faster path to zero climate emissions and affordable housing, even if the policies are not being put forward by Parliamentary parties in this election.

Here’s the policies put forward by the various parties we like:

• Energy sufficiency from the Greens. Threading the concept of sufficiency through portfolios directly addresses consumption growth causing the climate crisis and, more broadly, the overshooting of planetary boundaries.

• Electrifying the urban bus fleet by 2030 and fully funded public transport (The Greens and The Opportunities Party), as well as $1,500 credits for bikes, e-bikes and e-scooters for under 30’s from TOP.

• Establishing a $1bn fund for Māori-owned community energy projects and solar panel installations from Te Pāti Māori. Labour and the Greens also have policies supporting community energy projects, especially those focused on mārae.

Here’s the policies we dislike:

• Relying on market pricing through the Emissions Trading Scheme alone to achieve emissions reduction, a policy of both ACT and National. This approach is a triumph of ideology over evidence¹ and paves the way for an inequitable transition. Combined with a lack of policy pressure on farm emissions pricing and absolute limits on forestry, this approach places undue pressure on other sectors of the economy and on households.

• Building more roads and defunding efforts to enact a transport mode shift. National, Act and New Zealand First. Transport represents 21% of New Zealand’s total greenhouse gas emissions and is the fastest growing source of emissions. The policies of National and Act will exacerbate a substantial and growing problem, effectively canceling out the hard-won reductions in emissions made by other sectors.

• Budget potholes from National and Labour, with a special nod to the Treasury for enabling this. The very real economic costs of missing domestic emissions targets are uncosted and unbudgeted. Both National and Labour have these potholes in their plans, but National has more.

Key policies by political parties

Labour’s Climate Manifesto includes:

• A new Minister for Just Transitions;

• Delivering second Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) budget in line with second emissions budget, albeit without policy details with costs and benefits;

• Targeting 100% renewable electricity by 2030 and further funding to examine dry-year battery storage options;

• giving the Climate Change Commission independence in setting ETS volume and price controls, limiting the amount of exotic carbon afforestation and expanding carbon removals categories to include peatland and wetland restoration;

• $30m for tree planting on Department of Conservation land;

• increasing the Government’s green investment fund by $300m to $1bn;

• developing a new climate adaptation and managed retreat framework, but no detail on cost allocation, further housing development in at-risk areas or government subsidised insurance;

• removing diesel generators from all schools;

• EV charging hubs every 150-200 km on main highways; and,

• rebates for housing insulation and heating retrofits (up to $18,000) and for switching from gas to electricity.

National has yet to release a full policy statement on climate change, but have released policies in various areas to;

• doubling of renewable energy generation by limiting consent delays to a year and extending existing consents for 35 years;

• reducing the renewable electricity target to 99% by 2030 and dropping the New Zealand Battery storage project, achieving dry-year gap coverage with fossil-fuelled generation and over-building renewable energy;

• scrapping the clean-car discount scheme, but subsidising the rollout of 10,000 EV chargers by 2030;

• eliminate the CERF (Climate Emergency Response Fund) and shift ETS funds into general expenditure to support tax cuts, including dumping the GIDI fund for government investment in emissions reduction by industry;

• establish an industry-led Agricultural Emissions Pricing Board and delaying pricing of agricultural emissions until 2030;

• removing restrictions on gene technologies for methane reduction;

• restricting the conversion of farmland to forestry; and,

• unspecified cost sharing for managed retreat, but opposing limits on development in at-risk areas and opposing government-subsidised insurance.

Labour has avoided specifying tougher policies to cut emissions that would affect car drivers, but is still suggesting it will take action in future to reduce emissions.

National is essentially saying we can keep driving cars and growing the economy by using technology and unsubsidised private investment to decouple GDP growth from climate emissions, even though that hasn’t worked here or overseas at scale. National argues it can double renewable energy generation, simply by making consents easier and telling gentailers to do it.

However, this ignores the fact the gentailers already have enough consents to double wind generation, but have held back from investing because they don’t see the necessary demand growth or high enough wholesale prices to generate double-digit returns on equity, even though electricity utilities overseas are usually regulated to Government bond-like returns in the single digits.

The Greens’ policy includes:

• funding and prioritising Māori research, planning and actions to address climate change and honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi;

• reduce livestock density on farms by requiring consents for intensificationand providing unspecified support for farmers to transition to regenerative approaches;

• introduce principle of energy sufficiency within an ‘energy descent’ model;

• engineering a dramatic transport mode shift, including by building electrified rail and coastal shipping networks;

• allowing Climate Change Commission to set ETS unit supply, accelerate phase-out of free unit allocations;

• reinvesting ETS revenues in emissions abatement, or to support agricultural transition and ensuring existing foresters are not disadvantaged by changes to exotic forestry sink rules, particularly where iwi have invested in pine forestry on marginal land);

• establishing a $750m climate resilience fund for nature restoration in towns and cities that curbs flooding risk; and,

• supporting homeowners to install solar or efficiency upgrades (payments up to $6K and $30K loans) and tax deductibility on carbon-zero upgrades.

The Greens even go as far as stating in a summary of its policy that it would create an “economic transformation that avoids growth.”

ACT’s climate policy include:

• repealing the Zero-Carbon Act (including disbanding the Climate Change Commission), and tie ETS pricing to trading partners, while paying out ETS revenues as cash dividends to New Zealanders;

• repeal all mitigation efforts in areas covered by the ETS including the ban on oil and gas, 100% renewable electricity generation, the clear car discount;

• stop the Lake Onslow/NZ Battery project by maintaining fossil fuelled generation;

• reducing the methane target based on its future contribution to increased warming and allow farmers to claim off-sets for all on-farm sequestration;

• reducing the 2030 targets previously committed to under the Paris Agreement, effectively reneging on it and hoping the UK and EU don’t use clauses in their trade deals with New Zealand to lock out primary exports;

• repealing the RMA and replacing it with property-rights based laws and fast-tracking all approval processes; and,

• putting all managed retreat and climate damage risk onto land owners and their insurers.

Te Pāti Māori’s policy includes;

• Ending new onshore oil and gas permits, withdraw existing ones and ending offshore ones, while also banning seabed mining;

• establishing a $1bn fund for Māori-owned community energy projects and solar panel installations; and,

• phasing out synthetic nitrogen fertiliser by 2025 and bringing methane into the ETS

• Stronger support for Pasifika leaders on the global stage.

NZ First’s policy includes:

• no emissions pricing for agriculture and adopting standardised farm-level reporting

• shift funding to roading investment from cycleways and light rail, develop coastal marine freight transport and selected rail corridors;

• re-structure the electricity market under a Ministry for Energy, abolishing the Electricity Authority;

• creating a state-owned oil explorer alongside rebuilding Marsden Point as an oil refinery;

• redirecting money from the ETS to buy overseas credits and invest in low-methane genetic engineering.

TOP’s policy includes:

• strengthening the ETS by excluding new forestry, bringing in a hard cap on units and empowering the Climate Commission to independently set the carbon price floor, re-investing more of the schemes revenues in renewable energy development, emissions free transport and a carbon dividend;

• electrifying the urban bus fleet by 2030, fully funding public transport and paying a $1,500 credit for bikes, e-bikes and e-scooters for under-30’s.

Nga mihi nui

Cathrine and Bernard

1. Page 46 of the IPCC’s Working Group III summary for policy makers. E.4.2