Climate change: let’s talk pain

There’s an ad on the telly for a dentist. In a humorous way it gets across the point that no matter how lovely your new teeth, there are times when it’s not appropriate to flash them: funerals, firing an employee, that sort of thing.

Positivity is good. Over the next few decades we are going to need plenty of it as we tackle what is increasingly portrayed by the planet’s scientists and climate experts as an existential threat.

But as the architects of Wellington’s new bus transport system have discovered, sometimes you’re better giving people the truth, warning them of the pain to come, rather than highlighting the promise you will be unable to deliver.

This Government has hinted at the pain on the horizon as we tackle our ‘‘nuclear moment’’. Grand words have been spoken on the world stage, lofty carbon-zero goals set for some point in the not-too distant future, and the concept of a ‘‘just transition’’ raised.

But as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern addressed the news media in the wake of a truly scary report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a report that painted a dire picture for millions of people and hundreds of thousands of species across the planet, she couldn’t help flashing those now-famous pearly whites and promoting the ‘‘opportunity’’ that exists for the national economy and its people.

Even as those experts were warning that a rise of no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius in temperature was the new goal to avoid catastrophe, and highlighting the inability of new technology to get us there, Ardern was talking up innovations in our dairy industry: vaccines, new types of feed and methane-busting grasses. She pointedly ignored the issue of stock numbers.

On petrol prices, which will need to rise to get us out of our cars and away from a reliance on fossil fuels, she resorted to the politics of the personal, complaining of oil barons fleecing the public.

If the idea was to avoid spooking the horses, well, surely that opportunity has already bolted. In petrol stations around the country, staff are noting the rise of tempers and frustrations to match the prices.

This is a mere hint of the pain to come, a foreshadowing of the change that will be needed to meet this great challenge and how we might respond.

The Government’s own response will be seen in how it approaches aligned issues such as freshwater, one part of the greater sum. It will be interesting to observe how far it goes in possible changes to the Resource Management Act and their impact on intensified agriculture as part of improving this crucial resource.

However, it’s insightful and disappointing that the freshwater plan involves the creation of three new working groups.

It is good to talk, but we have done enough of that. Now is the time for a clear plan of action and an honest, up-front conversation about the changes needed to execute that strategy across all sectors. And the pain that will come with it, hopefully shared in a way that protects the most vulnerable.

Prime minister, it’s time to drop the smile and show us the steel. Give it to us, because we can take it. We have to.

‘‘This is a mere hint of the pain to come, a foreshadowing of the change that will be needed to meet this great challenge and how we might respond.’’