With EVS out of picture, where will cuts come?
relatively expensive for the average Kiwi family’’ and National is ‘‘open to all options including subsidies for electric vehicles’’ and ‘‘increasing regulations on older, less efficient cars’’.
By the time the Government unveiled its feebate and clean car standard scheme last July, National had pivoted to being resolutely opposed to it.
The EV incentive introduced by the previous National government, a road user charge waiver, has so far been unimpressive. Just 2169 EVS were registered in the 2019 September quarter, compared with more than 60,000 petrol cars.
Transport has been singled out for two reasons. It makes up 20 per cent of domestic emissions. It has also been the fastest growing source of emissions in the last 30 years, increasing by 82 per cent between 1990 and 2017.
The second reason it’s been singled out is because it’s a much easier problem to tackle than our other major climate sinner – the elephant
(more accurately the cow) in the room.
Agriculture is the source of nearly half of our greenhouse gas emissions, but any serious reduction in emissions from that sector has been put firmly in the too-hard basket. The Government has managed to agree to a form of agricultural emissions pricing, but it will take effect only in 2025 and (as per the terms negotiated by NZ First in its 2017 coalition agreement) with a 95 per cent discount rate.
Agriculture’s importance to exports, the difficulty in balancing the various sins of short and long-lived gases, and its centrality to the New Zealand psyche make it too difficult for politicians to move any faster – even now, National plans to remove the methane target from the Government’s zero carbon legislation if it wins this year’s election, kicking it to the Climate Change Commission.
Now it looks like obvious and easy transport emissions reduction has gone into the too-hard basket as well, despite the fact that it’s the most obvious place to start the country’s long painful journey towards net zero emissions.
If serious emissions reductions in agriculture and transport are both off the table, voters might well ask where the necessary cuts will come.
The reticence shown by politicians to single out sectors is unsurprising – it’s baked into the structure of democracy itself. It’s very easy to talk about lofty goals, but deciding who has to wear the pain and how much is difficult: everyone wants a carve-out.
The problem is reminiscent of the fears proponents of public choice theory raised in the 20th century. Voters in a democracy have difficulty balancing their own selfish goals with what’s best for society. We all want low taxes, great public services and little government debt, but having all three at once is impossible.
Some of these failings led to greater independence being given to institutions like the Reserve Bank, which was insulated from the selfish vicissitudes of democratic politics, to the benefit of the wider economy.
The collapse of the feebate will only be further evidence that the Climate Change Commission, created by the zero carbon legislation, should be given greater powers and independence. If voters and politicians aren’t capable of making sensible, long-term decisions themselves, perhaps kicking those unpalatable choices to someone else is the only option.