National set to renege on Paris Agreement

Written By: - Date published: 10:10 am, October 5th, 2023 - 16 comments
Categories: climate change, election 2023, Environment, ETS, james shaw, national, same old national, science - Tags: , ,

National says it is not interested in meeting its financial obligations under the international Paris Agreement on climate change, signed by the previous National government.

Reneging on the accord will have huge trade, diplomatic and reputational damage implications.

In a debate between the three leading parties on climate change on RNZ’s Morning Report on Monday, National climate change spokesperson Simon Watts said a National government will not pay what are known in the agreement as Nationally Determined Contributions for failing to meet emission reduction targets.

“I just can’t see, if you’re sitting in your car, knowing the health system is in crisis, knowing the education system is in crisis, that the government is going to be writing cheques to offshore entities in regards to this right now,” Watts said in the debate.

He said National’s focus was on reducing emissions, including doubling the country’s renewable energy generation.

Because Aotearoa is tracking well below its 2030 emissions reduction target (41 percent of 2005 emissions) under the Paris accord, we are likely to face a bill ranging from $3 billion to over $23 billion in order to meet our climate change obligations, according to a Government report published in April.

Asked by RNZ’s Corrin Dann if National would commit to paying for the shortfall as required, Watts said: “It’s not something that’s our focus. Our focus in on domestic emissions reductions.”

If Aotearoa fails to cut emissions sufficiently, it must acquire carbon credits, plant forests offshore or pay polluters to stop polluting, which some economists assume will be cheaper than making cuts in emissions at home. While no purchases will be made until after the election, the kinds of things that could qualify include retiring coal boilers in developing countries, or planting forests.

Treasury estimates 100 million tonnes of credits will be needed and that is where the $3.3b to $23b cost between now and 2030 comes in.

Whichever way the government decides to do it, the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update said the costs will be “significant” and will start biting “within the current fiscal forecast period”.

The numbers prepared by Treasury in the Prefu explicitly excluded the costs of meeting obligations for the Paris Agreement, but in that document Treasury said obligations would start to kick in the current period at $500 million per year. Why such a large liability is excluded from a budget-like document is a mystery.

RNZ reporting of that fiscal hole quoted Climate Change Minister James Shaw as saying one, or possibly two, rounds of carbon credit purchases could be made in the next four years, with a third and final “wash-up” at the end of the decade.

Carbon market expert Christina Hood from Compass Climate said whoever is in government will be expected to start showing progress towards meeting our Paris target well before the end of the decade.

“There’s this common misconception that whoever the finance minister is in 2032 is going to have to get their chequebook out and square up by however much we missed by. It doesn’t work that way at all.”

“Every emission (saving) we count has to actually occur during those years (before 2030), so we need to get on with funding that.”

To meet our Paris target, Aotearoa’s emissions between 2021 and 2030 must not exceed 571 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent gases (Mt C02e). Emissions in 2021 came in at just under one-sixth of the entire budget.

The 2015 Paris Agreement, part of the UN Framework Convention of Climate Change, doesn’t have specific penalties for countries not meeting commitments, instead relying on transparent accountability and international peer pressure.

Setting aside the small issue that the Paris Agreement is humanity’s best and only real hope of avoiding climate catastrophe, Aotearoa as a small nation has always relied on a rules-based international order. Thumbing our noses at the Paris accord would undermine the rules-based order, jeopardise trade and cause significant diplomatic and reputational damage.

President Emmanuel Macron, who last month launched a 50-point “ecological plan” to reduce France’s gas emission by 55% from its 1990 level would no doubt look very dimly on a failure by Aotearoa to meet its commitments. Overt, or covert measures would be taken by the EU and others.

National, like Labour, sees the Emissions Trading Scheme as the primary vehicle to meet our 2030 and 2050 targets. But it plans to delay pricing farm emissions, that make up just under half of Aotearoa’s total emissions, until 2030 mean we are very unlikely to come close to our target.

National is pinning a lot of hope of the electrification of the vehicle fleet as manufacturers switch, despite its commitment to overturn the Government’s highly successful EV car purchase subsidy. Transport emissions are about 20 percent of total emissions with cars, utes and SUVs making up 70 percent of those. Even the most optimistic scenario of EV take-up will not sufficiently reduce emissions.

To make things even harder, National is also planning to scrap the Clean Car Standard and will reverse the ban on new permits for offshore oil and gas exploration.

National is also putting much store on fast-tracking the consent process for new renewable power projects, ignoring the fact that multiple renewable energy generation projects are not proceeding despite already having consents.

It also plans to cancel development of the Lake Onslow pumped hydro scheme that many power industry experts see as essential insurance, or back-up, for a country that will rely heavily on unreliable power sources such as hydro, wind and solar.

Simon Louisson is a former journalist who also worked briefly as a media advisor for the Green Party

16 comments on “National set to renege on Paris Agreement ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. That_guy 1
    5 October 2023 at 10:20 am

    Unhinged, dangerous, irresponsible.

    Only National could manage to fuck our export brand, our international credibility and our children all at the same time.

    • higherstandard 1.1
      5 October 2023 at 11:07 am

      Haven't you been awake for the last few years ?

      The current government has proven themselves quite capable of meeting all those targets.

      • That_guy 1.1.1
        5 October 2023 at 12:26 pm

        I'm not enthralled with any of the options in this election.

        I can still tell the difference between a political movement that isn't moving fast enough in the right direction and a political movement that is untethered from reality.

      • Cindy 1.1.2
        6 October 2023 at 9:09 am

        No, we won’t meet our targets. Nothing like it. The only way we possibly can is by buying huge amounts of carbon credits internationally.

        The way this article is written is very odd and shows the author doesn’t understand his subject.

        An NDC is a emissions reduction target, not a financial contribution. That New Zealand has a target (an NDC) that would require us to buy international carbon credits to meet two thirds of it is embarrassing.

  2. Dennis Frank 2
    5 October 2023 at 10:32 am

    Aotearoa as a small nation has always relied on a rules-based international order. Thumbing our noses at the Paris accord would undermine the rules-based order, jeopardise trade and cause significant diplomatic and reputational damage.

    Look at the upside though: it would get us a global reputation as a bunch of juvenile delinquents. Excellent way for the Nats to ensure their demise as a political force!

    • Francesca 2.1
      5 October 2023 at 4:41 pm

      Can you tell me the difference between the "rules based order" and international law?

      It always seems so inexact and murky

      • Dennis Frank 2.1.1
        5 October 2023 at 5:35 pm

        You probably know already, but governance gets done by convention, not just law. The cabinet manual, for instance, is adhered to by convention. I've never heard anyone specify it as a legal requirement. Globally, the recognition of sovereignty is not compelled by international law but is adhered to by convention after a critical mass of states recognise a nation state as being sovereign. Like a club ruled by consensus even if the rules are not laws.

        If that doesn't suffice, others may be able to add further dimensions to the somewhat ephemeral notion of rules-based international order…

  3. Adrian 3
    5 October 2023 at 11:11 am

    Labours piss-poor messaging is probably the reason for its fall in popularity. Whoever is in charge of it should get their arse kicked, it seems to run on a premise that nobody should be offended or alarmed. The clean car discount should be messaged for what it is, and that is a partial GST refund on the purchase of an EV. In effect it doesn't cost the Government a lot at all. National have been able to get away without challenge of framing it as a subsidy paid to the worlds richest dickhead, as if it comes off the physical cost of the vehicle,which is not the case and should be corrected.

    As for the hypocritical temerity of Luxon to complain about the scheme while buying TWO of the bloody things himself, again without being challenged, has me really pissed off.

  4. newsense 4
    5 October 2023 at 12:31 pm

    Where’s that Luke Malpass? He’s a senior political journalist who knows when something is extremely stupid! In fact, the stupidest, he or his sub editors said.

    In addition:

    Neither National or Act support regulations to stop building in at-risk areas in the future, either, meaning houses could keep going up in places where flooding is inevitable.

    https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/04-10-2023/a-laypersons-guide-to-the-climate-change-policies-on-offer-this-election

  5. newsense 5
    5 October 2023 at 12:36 pm

    The shit was coming down the walls in the hospitals when this lot left last time.

    Increase in health funding sir? We thought we should have a hospital with a sewerage system sir. Wasteful spending sir? Yes, very funny, sir.

  6. AB 6
    5 October 2023 at 12:59 pm

    I'd like to say that National are uniquely unhinged about this. But my guess is that the first instinct of most other countries is also to default on their Nationally Determined Contributions. And once the first one defaults, there will be a cascade of them. It all looks grim as a result, and 4C plus may be our trajectory for 2100.

    Where National do look to be uniquely silly though, is in appearing to believe that NZ can get away with freeloading and remain quietly under the radar while everyone else does the right thing. The notion of collective solidarity seems not to occupy a prominent place in the right wing brain.

  7. SPC 7
    5 October 2023 at 1:57 pm

    Doing for the export sector in the foreign market place what they do for waterways domestically.

    If this is how they represent the farmer interest, why is there no push back?

    PS

    Given National is not getting it right in the transport or energy area, they really really need the methane reduction from livestock research work to payoff.

  8. georgecom 8
    5 October 2023 at 7:08 pm

    join the dots back in time and see where they lead. back to 2008-17, nine years of a do nothing government on the climate change front. took things where the previous Labour government had left it there. no move on reducing agricultural emissions, no attempt to increase the price of carbon to send economic signals, no strategy, no plan. maybe one reason we will over shoot 2030 is that goverments piss poor record of action. go further back in time to the 2000's and ideas about a tax on agricultural emissions. who opposed it? who drove tractors up the steps of parliament? take a guess. fast forward to 2023 who is still dodging pricing agricultural emissions, who wants to kick the can another 5 years down the road. maybe if there had been some meaningful action 2008-17 Watts might find there is no cheque needed to send overseas in 2030. All the farmers moaning about the 'pace of change' being asked of them, maybe if between 2008-17 the government had actually done something the pace of change would have been more gradual.

  9. Ad 9
    6 October 2023 at 7:58 am

    We have just had the hottest September since the the Industrial Revolution. By an unheard-of margin.

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/september-2023-hottest-ever-eu-copernicus-climate-change-service/

    The deals Labour and the Greens struck with Synlait, Fonterra, and Glenbrook Steel were practical and will be implemented and will make a major difference to our emissions. It can be done.

    I think we need another of those massive climate marches as we did in 2018. No matter who is in government next.

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