Climate Minister James Shaw gave a 20 minute speech yesterday announcing the upcoming Emissions Reduction Plan,
In the months since I delivered that last speech, and whilst we’ve been developing the content of the Plan, we have seen first-hand the impact that the climate crisis is already having on our communities.
Repeated flooding, on a massive scale, in Gisborne and Tairāwhiti.
Incredible storm damage, over and over again, in Westport and Buller.
And at the same time droughts in Southland so severe that the Awarua–Waituna wetlands caught fire – in autumn.
The climate crisis is no longer something that’s happening to someone else, somewhere else, at some point in the future.
It’s happening to us. It’s happening here. It’s happening now.
And the best thing that we can do to prevent it from getting any worse, is to rapidly cut the pollution that we’re putting into the atmosphere.
Transcript is here.
There’s a lot in there, but as someone whose eyes glaze over at talk of carbon megatonnes and carbon credits, I found this surprisingly accessible.
Radio NZ has a good write up in climate reporter Hamish Cardwell’s analysis, including some history of the planning process, where we are at and links to explainers: Government plan to tackle climate change to be revealed.
Over the next few weeks a series of things will happen to set the stage for New Zealand’s low carbon future.
This Thursday parliament will debate. Shaw explains,
… the Climate Change Commission recommended that we hold a special Parliamentary debate on the first three emissions budgets, prior to the publication of the Emissions Reduction Plan itself.
This would allow each party to put its views on record and, at the same time, preserve each party’s ability to disagree on the policy prescription by which we collectively meet those emissions budgets.
After all, the first three emissions budgets take us through to 2035, which would span the life of several governments.
The following Monday will see the release of the Emissions Reduction Plan in detail, as well as Finance Minister Grant Robertson announcing the first investments from the Climate Emergency Response Fund. Climate is expected to feature heavily in the 2022 Budget on May 19th.
For critique of the speech,
Greenpeace NZ Emissions Reduction Plan must cut big dairy pollution to be credible
No Right Turn’s Climate Change: The new emissions budget
The first thing I want to say is thank-you James Shaw. Like many who are paying attention I find the realities of the climate crisis pretty hard going now, not least because we have been doing so little. This speech outlines not only the huge amount of work that’s been done in recent years, but that we now have the groundwork for actual, effective change. Credit to Shaw also for leading a plan that can survive a change of government.
As Shaw says, it’s not enough, we’re just getting started. But then it’s on all of us now, to make personal change, to bring this to our communities and workplaces, and to hold government to this promise. I’m personally less interested in the numbers stuff than I am in the cultural change that we need to vote in governments that will take the action that is needed. And the cultural change that will see us all step up and engage in a kind of ‘war effort’ across society.
While I don’t believe that neoliberal governments will lead fast enough, they can follow the cutting edge of climate activists and NGOs, and ultimately the voters. We also have to have people in government setting up the systemic changes now, and this is what I see here. Especially the scale – we have multiple Ministers and departments now actively engaged in a process where future governments are legally bound into taking action. That’s a huge number of people already working on this project and who will be in a position to do more as voters allow. That’s gold.
We are incredibly fortunate to have the Green Party and Te Pāti Māori in parliament who can push the progressive climate edge in ways that Labour for whatever reason can’t or won’t. We can hope for all three parties to be working together after the next election.
New Zealand has the opportunity to lead here. Not yet, but perhaps soon.
It’s possible for this to be both heartening and not enough. Read Greenpeace and NRT, because we have to understand where we are failing, but please also read/listen to James Shaw’s speech to see the good and the potential. Now is not the time for cynicism or despair. Shaw and a great many civil servants have given us something to work with, this is the beginning of a project that will outlast us all. We have to be able to work with what we have, and at the same time be willing to see how it can work out.
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