Climate change and global governance: Personal reflections on the journey from COP6 to COP26

Catherine Leining is a Policy Fellow at Motu Economic and Public Policy Research and a Commissioner at He Pou a Rangi New Zealand Climate Change Commission. She also serves on the Board of the New Zealand Centre for Global Studies. This post is an adaptation of Catherine’s response to an address by the Hon James Shaw, New Zealand Minister of Climate Change, at the Centre’s 8th Annual Global Affairs Lecture (‘The UN and Climate Negotiations: Implications for our planet and country’) on 6 December 2021. Catherine’s response was given in her individual capacity and does not represent the views of her affiliated organisations. This post first appeared on the blog for the New Zealand Centre for Global Studies on 15 December 2021.  

The 26th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was held in Glasgow from 31 October to 12 November 2021. While tangible progress was made both inside and outside the formal negotiations, the world still faces a critical target gap to limit rises in global temperatures to 1.5^oC above pre-industrial levels. 

I would like to share my personal experience in the international climate change negotiations and offer further reflections on the challenges of climate change and global governance. These are only reflections, not answers.

New research documents challenges with industrial free allocation in the NZ ETS

The following press release was issued by Motu on 3 September 2021.  

A new paper from Motu Research documents why the current approach to industrial free allocation under the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (NZ ETS) is outdated, poses high costs to Kiwi taxpayers, could make it harder to meet our 2050 climate change target and raises fairness issues across sectors.  

These issues underpin the government’s current consultation on reform options to industrial free allocation open until 17 September 2021. This paper presents further reform options the government and stakeholders could consider.

New proposal to boost voluntary climate action

This post was first published in Newsroom. 

By Catherine Leining, a Policy Fellow at Motu Economic and Public Policy Research and a Climate Change Commissioner

Many organisations want to go the extra distance to support the transition to lower emissions and fight climate change. Catherine Leining outlines Motu Research's proposal for how to incentivise and assist voluntary climate action.

Aotearoa New Zealand faces a gap in meeting its 2030 climate change target under the international Paris Agreement. And the world faces a collective gap in committed action to limit global temperature rises to 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels.

An innovative policy proposal from Motu Research could mobilise voluntary climate action to help bridge those gaps and enable organisations to make credible, transparent and marketable emission mitigation claims.

Even with a pandemic, we cannot afford to press 'pause' on climate action

Photo by Jan Kaluza on Unsplash

Catherine Leining is a Policy Fellow at Motu Economic and Public Policy Research and a New Zealand Climate Change Commissioner.

On 4 May 2020, as Parliament was emerging from lock down, so too did the Environment Committee’s report on the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Reform) Amendment Bill. This Bill deserves close attention, as the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) has a critical role to play in post-pandemic recovery.

The most crucial features of the Bill remain the same: to add a cap to our cap-and-trade system; to guard against extreme emission prices; to improve incentives for new forests; and to prepare the way for pricing agricultural emissions.

Illuminating carbon market dynamics using the NZ ETS Cap Explorer Tool

By Ruth Copeland, Communications Director, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research

With the Environment Select Committee due to report back on the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Reform) Amendment Bill, perhaps this is a timely reminder to have a good look at the NZ ETS Cap Explorer Tool released last year by Motu. The government plans to improve the current ETS by introducing a ‘cap’ on emissions covered by the scheme. This cap will reduce over time to help us meet our emission reduction targets.

The tool is designed to highlight complex ETS dynamics using data derived from the modelling of hypothetical scenarios. If you adjust the parameters within the various scenarios, you can easily investigate the effect on emission levels and prices.