With EVs out of picture, where will cuts come?

Roughly 400 years after the birth of Christ a young man from North Africa, a part-time Christian and full-time philanderer, prayed, ‘‘Lord make me chaste, but not yet’’. That man, later canonised St Augustine of Hippo, probed one of life’s most difficult questions: what happens when following one’s desires militates against doing what is good or what is right?

It’s a question that was on the minds of politically inclined environmentalists last weekend after news that NZ First was blocking a proposed ‘‘feebate’’ scheme, designed to encourage the uptake of electric vehicles. The scheme, which put a fee on polluting cars in order to subsidise cleaner cars, was recommended by the Productivity Commission and has been rolled out in countries like France, Sweden and Singapore.

The policy shouldn’t have been contentious. Despite the histrionic cries of ‘‘car tax’’, there’s agreement across Parliament that emissions in transport need to come down. The confidence and supply agreement between Labour and the Greens, and agreed to by NZ First, lists transport as the first sector for policy progress designed to shift to a net zero emissions economy by 2050.

Even National agrees transport is where the emissions reduction hammer blow should fall. Its environment policy discussion document from February last year lists transport as ‘‘the area of the most significant opportunity [to reduce emissions] in the medium term’’.

The same document says ‘‘electric cars are still 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.

Even National agrees transport is where the emissions reduction hammer blow should fall.