Integrating climate with economy needs to extend beyond government

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.

Zero Carbon Bill Submission

by Catherine Leining and Suzi Kerr.
The New Zealand government has recently consulted on its proposal for a Zero Carbon Bill. This would:

• set a new and more ambitious 2050 greenhouse gas emission reduction target
• establish interim five-year “emissions budgets” consistent with meeting those targets
• require the government to issue plans for achieving its emissions budgets
• require preparation of a national climate change risk assessment and national adaptation plan
• set up a new independent Climate Change Commission to advise the government and monitor its progress.

Our full submission on the Zero Caron Bill is available here. In this blog we highlight five key opportunities to improve the government’s proposal.

E-Mission Possible roundtable summaries

by Catherine Leining and Ceridwyn Roberts, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research

The road to a net-zero future is paved with challenging questions for which there are no definitive answers – just choices to be made under uncertainty and consequences to be faced under risk. In order to shed new light on particularly thorny questions for NZ's low-emission transition Motu, Productivity Commission, the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, and the Environmental Defence Society convened a series of roundtables.

We have now completed the summaries from all four E-Mission Possible Roundtables.  We received very positive feedback on all of the roundtables in the series, and want to thank everyone who contributed to their design, funding and implementation.

New report highlights need for coastal homeowners, government, and the insurance industry to plan for climate change

by Susan Livengood, Director of Partnerships for the Deep South National Science Challenge.

As New Zealand counts the cost of widespread flooding this month, a new report identifies key questions we need to answer to better prepare our coastal communities for climate change.

The Insurance, housing and climate adaptation report, commissioned by the Deep South National Science Challenge, highlights issues New Zealand may face as it grapples with “increasingly severe risks” for coastal housing – particularly sea level rise which is expected to exacerbate the frequency and impacts of flooding and storm surges.

It was hard not to think of this report as I drove along the Thames Coast Road in the wake of last week’s storms. Huge boulders lay on the road, pohutukawa trees ripped from the earth by landslides lay dying in the sea, and the splash of waves on the road reminded me just how susceptible to sea level rise this area is.

Finding the best cure for a "hot air" hangover

By Catherine Leining, Policy Fellow at Motu Economic and Public Policy Research

When it was introduced in 2008, the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (NZ ETS) pioneered many design features. Among these was replacing the conventional ETS cap on emission units and constraint on offset credits with an unconstrained buy-and-sell linkage to the global cap set by the Kyoto Protocol. This gave participants the option to increase their own emissions while contributing to global mitigation by buying overseas Kyoto units if that was the most efficient outcome.  The history of why this policy choice was made and how it has impacted on the system’s outcomes alongside other design features and historical events is detailed in Motu’s new working paper entitled Lessons Learned from the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme.

Fossil Fuel Divestment - Part 2: The role of New Zealand in the movement

By Luke Harrington

As discussed in my previous post ‘Fossil Fuel Divestment Part 1: Can it really make a difference’, the notion of divesting from fossil fuels has started to gain traction following a movement led by 350.org founder Bill McKibben – to date, some 63 US institutions (including Stanford University), as well as the cities of Seattle and San Francisco, have committed to divesting fossil fuel stocks.

The global divestment campaign has recently started to have an influence in New Zealand too. While our universities do not have large endowments like their US counterparts, other organisations, such as Westpac, have been targeted by activists for supporting fossil-fuel-related ventures. State-owned funds also have large investments in oil, gas and coal companies. While these entities have actively divested from the nuclear industry in the past, they seem unwilling to do the same for fossil fuels at present. Here, we look at how New Zealand organisations, both government and commercial, are influenced by the fossil fuel divestment debate, and how one New Zealand city is leading by example.

Sustainable KiwiSaver fund: Have your say on where your savings are being invested

By Fiona Stephenson, National Communications Manager, Sustainable Business Network

Do you know where your savings in KiwiSaver are being invested? If you care about which companies your savings are supporting, your input can help drive demand for a sustainable KiwiSaver fund. At the Sustainable Business Network (SBN), we would love to hear your views, so take this quick survey (less than five minutes) and be part of a collective voice.

Fossil Fuel Divestment – Part 1: Can it really make a difference?

By Luke Harrington

Fossil fuel divestment is a rapidly expanding idea and shareholders in the fossil fuel industry now face a curious new reality. Everyone knows about the potential power of a positive feedback effect: an action which reinforces the initial direction of change. In terms of the physical response to climate change, we can think of the Arctic - melting ice leads to more exposed ocean, resulting in less sunlight reflection, more heat absorption and hence further ice melt. Fossil fuel divestment can be seen in the same way as our CO₂ emissions were for the Arctic; investors have the ability to start the snowball effect. Though the financial risk to investors may be too low to necessitate divestment in the near term, doing so now will help to actively destabilise future fossil fuel assets, thereby making the concept of divestment more financially attractive for others shareholders later.