A reaction to the Wellbeing Budget of May 2019 by Catherine Leining, Policy Fellow at Motu Economic and Public Policy Research
On 30 May 2019, the New Zealand government released its first “Wellbeing Budget.” Under this framework, new funding for climate change mitigation has been integrated with economic development. Adaptation gets only a brief nod. Is this budget allocation adequate to meet the climate change challenge before us? No – but could it ever be?
One key theme is research for a low-emission future. Examples are a National New-Energy Development Centre in Taranaki ($27m), an Advanced Energy Technology Platform ($20m), a Bioresource Processing Alliance and Product Accelerator ($18m), and an Agricultural Climate Change Research Platform ($3.2m). MBIE will advance policy on the future of work and “just transition” issues.
