Catherine Leining from Motu Economic and Public Policy discusses today's release of the Zero Carbon Act Report from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.
Climate change has been described by Lord Nicholas Stern as
the greatest market failure the world has ever seen, but it could just as
validly be described as the greatest governance failure. Short-term election
cycles and under-resourced departments are poorly suited for managing risks
that accumulate over generations and policies imposing near-term, local costs
in return for long-term, globally distributed benefits.
New Zealand’s Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment
(PCE) has released a report
that addresses part of the solution: legislating emission reduction targets and
establishing an independent Climate Commission. These are both components of
the government’s Zero
Carbon Act which is under development.
