NZ’s climate power list
This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 220 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.
The climate crisis is a problem for all of us. Without action by individuals, the world will not cut its carbon emissions quickly enough.
But, let’s be honest, some people have more power (and responsibility) than others.
Stuff has identified a group of New Zealanders with the greatest influence over climate change issues in this country.
Unlike the science that’s longsince proven human-created climate change, our list isn’t based on anything especially empirical. But Vance, Mitchell and Cooke, three of our journalists steeped in climate change issues, have drawn on their knowledge and networks to assemble the following climate change power list.
JAMES SHAW, Climate Change Minister
The position of ‘‘climate change minister’’ has only existed since 2005, and has mostly lived as a minor add-on portfolio, with no dedicated ministry to back it. Yet the role is clearly James Shaw’s dream job, and he is doing more with it than anyone has since the first minister, David Parker, who designed the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
He needs to. As the first Green Party climate change minister (and one of the first Green ministers ever) the 46-year-old former consultant has a huge weight of expectation upon him, from his wider party and its extremely involved base, many of whom suspect Shaw is a bit too business-friendly.
While Shaw is able to speak in a way that doesn’t alienate the business sector, he’s far from sanguine, and will talk to reporters about basically any aspect of climate policy under the sun, even when that conversation gets very dark.
Shaw has faced plenty of pushback. He originally planned to have the Zero Carbon Bill – an overarching framework to force future governments to drastically lower emissions – in force by April this year. Thanks to negotiations with NZ First running very long, he didn’t even get the bill introduced until May, and has struggled to keep National on-board for the bipartisan consensus he desires. The process has probably aged him about a decade.
But Shaw does not appear demoralised and has pushed on with serious changes to the ETS and several other climate-related moves. Jacinda Ardern said climate change was her generation’s nuclear-free moment but Shaw is treating it as much more than that, something more akin to a global financial crash or world war.
WINSTON PETERS, Deputy Prime Minister, NZ First leader
Winston Peters is the hinge on which much of the Government’s controversial policy turns, including climate change. While Peters is no denialist, he is about as far away from being a Green MP as you possibly can be.
He went into the last election pledging to support a Zero Carbon-style act but also to shut down the ETS, our only real tool for making emitters pay for the damage they do.
Peters, 74, is a keen observer of Aussie politics and will have watched closely as emissions policy ripped the Liberal Party apart over the last decade. He’s always looking out for any hypocrisy, beginning his speech in Parliament supporting the Zero Carbon Bill by saying the legislation was only required because National had signed New Zealand up to the Paris targets while in power.
His influence on the bill’s negotiations became obvious as the expected dates for the bill’s release and first, second, and third readings went by without even a whisper of an announcement. The fact that methane is being given a comparatively easy ride when compared to other emissions is not entirely thanks to Peters, but he certainly had a large part to play in that.
His other fear – that the Climate Change Commission would gain true independence and Reserve-Bank-like powers – was well and truly put to bed. Even since the bill has been introduced, Peters has been happy to brag about these achievements in radio interviews and editorials.
Any further climate action intended by Shaw will need to be put through the Winston-test first.
TIM GRAFTON, Insurance Council chief executive
There’s a term you often hear in discussions about climate change: the tipping point. It’s a threshold which, when breached, causes a large, mostly irreversible, change to something we have long seen as unchangeable.
One of the most important – and near-certain – climate change tipping points in New Zealand will be insurance retreat. When living on the coast becomes too risk-prone, insurers simply withdraw coverage, which has a cascade of effects, including the inability to get a mortgage.
This gives insurers an extraordinary amount of power. Where, and when, they decide to withdraw coverage will influence the future of some communities and the viability of living on parts of the coast.
These decisions will be made at an industry level – every insurer has detailed modelling available that tells it when certain events become too likely to cover against – but the public face of those decisions, has been, and will continue to be, Tim Grafton.
Grafton has been warning of this problem for the better part of a decade, ever since he became head of the Insurance Council late in 2012. As the public face of the insurers, he has been urging the Government to take a stronger stand on climate change adaptation and not to leave the response to the insurance industry.
This includes lobbying on behalf of the industry on matters like the Zero Carbon Bill, and proposing specific policies around adaptation. It’s notable that Shaw has said what first opened his eyes to the threat of climate change was a report on the impact of extreme weather on the insurance industry.
The industry will have to make tough, and what may appear to be harsh, decisions about its coverage, sooner rather than later. Grafton, and the insurers as a whole, have gone to great lengths to get ahead of the storm on the horizon.
MILES HURRELL, Fonterra chief executive
Saving the planet aside, Miles Hurrell currently has one of the biggest jobs in farming: turning around the fortunes of supertanker Fonterra. Last month, the dairy co-operative announced it would make an annual loss of up to $675 million, delayed the release of its audited financial statements, and signalled job losses.
On the bright side, the company has made noises about a new strategy that involves focusing on sustainable, homegrown New Zealand milk and