Comment 11 05 2019: This post has been slightly refined for clarification (e.g. that the step changes in emissions budgets are set so as to achieve the 2050 targets).
A legislative milestone.
The introduction of the Zero Carbon Amendment Bill to New Zealand’s parliament is of colossal importance, not only in the evolution of our own climate legislation, but also in blazing a trail for the world at large in regulating for the more ambitious 1.5°C Paris Agreement target.
Reaching this milestone with cross-party support is fundamental and, while clearly a major achievement of the Labour/Green/NZ First coalition, also casts a positive light on the National Party opposition.
Taking a lead from its UK precedent, a crucial objective of the legislation was defusing its potential to become a political time-bomb every election. The resultant document has skillfully blended the necessary compromises in a way that leaves it robust while still giving something for everyone.
The Labour and Green Parties clearly hold centre stage as champions of legislation whose time has come like no other, but there is concession enough, to the agricultural sector especially, to appease both National and New Zealand First.
Even ACT has found a point of difference, albeit by opposing the Bill in total, and so also distancing itself from perhaps the greatest reality check of the 21st century.
Overview
The proposal preserves key elements of the original Zero Carbon Bill, and none of the adjustments or concessions seem major game changers for climate, even though agricultural has got off too lightly. The main features of the new Bill are:
o Reduce all greenhouse gases to zero by 2050, except lesser targets for gases of biological origin;
o Reduce national emissions budgets in 5-yearly steps with settings to achieve the 2050 target;
o Obligations on government to develop and implement timely climate policies.
o Establishing a Climate Change Commission of experts to advise government.
Given that agricultural emissions are officially some 48% of our national total, the biggest concession is to require the reduction of the biogenic methane component (about 75%) by only 24%-47% below 2017 levels by 2050. This is not ambitious enough when methane offers our biggest and quickest means to drop our emissions.
Source MfE
Although this lets the agricultural sector too much off the hook, there are some mitigating factors. These include the relatively low emissions intensity of NZ agriculture compared to other countries; and joint research by Victoria and Oxford Universities showing the “GWP100“ metric used by the IPCC significantly over-estimates the impact of biogenic greenhouse gases once their role in the “short carbon cycle” is factored in.
However, the use of a 2017 baseline for biogenic methane (as against previous dates of 1990 or 2005) gives real concern, as the same VUW/Oxford research shows methane from changes in stock levels cause huge changes in warming effect.
Given that gross agricultural emissions increased by almost 20% from 1990 to 2015 (see graph), including major emissions from the intensive application of nitrogenous fertilisers (which do not have concessions and must reach zero by 2050), the 2017 reference is an additional reason the agricultural target is too soft.
Changes in area of forestry source: MfE “Environment Aotearoa 2019”.
Even so, Newshub reports National’s leader, Simon Bridges, as claiming that even the proposed methane reductions are too tough. While he might be playing to the farming sector, the reality is the world seriously needs large and speedy emissions reductions, and rapidly cutting ruminant numbers (especially those requiring intensive use of fertilisers) is one of our key strategies for that.
Factor in harvesting the “wall of wood” from our entrepreneurial ETS forests of the 1990s, and we also face major inroads into the CO2 absorption in our emissions profile (black in the diagram below). In that context, “tough” may well become “tougher” for all of us, and that may also apply to Bridges’ own approach to the agricultural sector.
Reductions in forestry and agricultural targets puts the focus on energy. Source MfE Greenhouse Gas Inventory
The flip side of “softer on agriculture”.
The inescapable outcome of lowering the bar for agriculture, compounded by the negative effect of the “wall of wood”, is the spotlight turning quickly onto energy as the major way for New Zealand to meet its emissions targets. This, in turn, means a steep trajectory to get right off fossil fuels – mostly in transport (around half of energy’s emissions, and the fastest growing), but also in manufacturing, heating buildings, and electricity generation.
NZ Energy emissions showing the scale and growth of transport. Source MfE Greenhouse Gas Inventory
The Interim Climate Change Committee report on renewable electricity generation is imminent, and is expected to chart a plausible pathway to an all-but-100% renewable electricity grid by 2035. This will be a critical step in transitioning off fossil fuels – with other steps including the ability to actually access and sustain sufficient electric vehicles (when the entire world will be trying to do the same), and getting the energy infrastructure in place for the transport (the system might be evolving now with EV charging stations, but is still just a glow on the horizon for the hydrogen vehicles likely to prove critical to our heavy road transport sector).
Major expansion in public transport will also play a key role, especially in conjunction with intensifying urban densities. This necessary change is being helped by us progressively seeing public transport as a desirable way to travel, rather than a poor alternative to driving. We still have a way to go, however, to catch up with the vision of Enrique Penalosa, former mayor of Bogota: “A developed country is not a place where the poor drive cars, it’s where the rich use public transport.”
Economic impacts.
The Government’s summary of the Bill notes that all the economic modelling shows positive effects from the proposed measures (although a temporary decline might accompany the first, strong emissions reductions). That is in line with findings in many other parts of the world, and notably in northern Europe, but is no doubt dependent on certain assumptions that need to be upheld.
The summary goes on to emphasise that the Bill can help “build our global advantage”, a desirable and plausible outcome of pioneering legislation in a world desperately in need of change. However, it is regrettable the focus is just on competitive advantage, without making more of the enormous global benefits of acting as a role model and sharing information.
Hayden Montgomery, of the Global Research Alliance, recognises this. In speaking at the recent Agricultural Climate Change conference, he noted New Zealand is almost unique as a small, developed country with a strongly agricultural economy. Montgomery then highlighted the pivotal role of this country in leading the way in climate responses, especially in ways the many small, but less well developed, agricultural economies can follow.
Operational
Two key operational strategies are the Climate Change Commission (CCC) and the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
In specifying that the CCC will comprise a carefully-selected range of independent experts, the authors of the Bill have wisely resisted pressure to base it, instead, on stakeholders. This largely defuses issues of conflicts of interest, while still providing channels for stakeholders to be heard.
The CCC is predictably cast as an advisory body, which will irritate proponents of it having decision-making powers, but governments are expected not to depart from its advice except under special circumstances.
The ETS will be based on a series of 5-year emissions budgets, much as the original Zero Carbon Bill, and which will be set 15 years ahead (and subject to only minimal subsequent adjustment). This will not only give industry and the financial sector much-needed certainty for the path ahead, but will also go a long way towards defusing swings in response to political changes.
Actual emissions budgets will be set by Ministers on advice from the Climate Change Commission, and once the first three budgets are in place, governments will essentially be setting budgets in a 10-15 year future window, with only slight adjustments of the earlier budgets already in place.
The Bill proposes limited abilities to “bank” (carry forward budget surplus) and “borrow” (up to 1% from the next budget), subject to strict criteria.
Even though this approach has merit, it is to be hoped that encouragement will be given to not carry forward a surplus. This would then help accelerate overall reductions, to the extent that a given emissions “allowance” is relinquished rather than used in a subsequent period.
Legislation for individuals as well as big players.
It is too easy to see emissions trading schemes and panels of experts as relating to processes far removed from individual daily life. However, this legislation is a roadmap for critical processes that will shape our lives for decades ahead. The more we understand and engage with it the easier it will be for us and the better the legislation will work.
We’ve waited a very long time for climate legislation that held promise of being up to the job. This is a very good shot at it, and for my money a lot better than we might have been facing. While I feel we should press for our big agricultural sector to shoulder more of its share, I give this proposed legislation a good 8/10. Let’s give our parliamentarians the support and encouragement needed to fine tune it, get it in place, and make it work.