Govt’s voice on transport seems missing in action
No silly promises from Wood, but how about sensible ones?
According to the new Minister of Transport, Michael Wood, the Government has a clear priority in transport policy. “We will be driven by the broad decarbonisation agenda,” he told me bluntly in an interview last weekend.
I wasn’t sure if the pun was intended. I also wasn’t sure what he meant. There’s been a big Climate Change and Business conference in Auckland this week, organised by the Environmental Defence Society. But the minister missed a chance to help drive the “decarbonisation agenda” because he wasn’t there.
In fact, although hundreds of experts from business, local government, central government agencies, the diplomatic corps, iwi and other NGOs turned up, the only MPs in the room were the Climate Change Minister, the Greens’ James Shaw, and Environment Minister David Parker. No Auckland councillors were present either.
Russel Norman of Greenpeace reminded the conference that under the Zero Carbon Act, the country’s emissions are supposed to be cut in half by 2030. He said we’re on track for a 16 per cent increase by that date. Decarbonisation is an urgent issue.
I’d asked Wood about his predecessor, Phil Twyford, a politician with a big vision who had not managed to realise his plans for achieving that vision. Was Wood going to push for big changes?
Or would he focus on what was in front of him?
“We have to do both,” Wood said. He said Twyford built good relations with government agencies, and the “four priorities” for transport he had established were the right ones.
That’s decarbonisation, mode shift (getting more people to use public transport and active options like walking and cycling), road safety and freight efficiency.
After three years, how will we measure success?
“Significant progress in all those areas.” Not very specific.
Wood wants to implement Twyford’s policies, but he knows the lesson: No silly promises.
Still, is it too much to ask that he makes a few sensible ones? What about declaring an end-date for importing petrol-driven private motor vehicles?
“We’re not looking at it,” he said. How is it credible to talk about decarbonisation if there’s no plan to phase out petrol engines?
“It’s not in our policy mix at the moment,” he said. “We haven’t discussed it.”
Britain has had a phase-out policy for three years, but the Tory Government now accepts that is too late and is poised, with Labour support, to bring the deadline forward from 2040 to 2030.
You might think it would rankle in the Labour ranks here that Boris Johnson is eating their lunch on
You might think it would rankle in the Labour ranks here that Boris Johnson is eating their lunch on climate change.
climate change. Wood maintained a steady smile as he talked: I got the sense that it does rankle.
British High Commissioner Laura Clarke, in her closing address, spelled out the challenge: “We need to put climate change at the heart of all financial decisions and we need to ascribe nature the respect it deserves.”
And here’s the thing for our Government. Good intentions, check. But presented with an essential policy that’s obvious, achievable and should be easy to sell, they’ve nothing. They haven’t got round to discussing it.
It’s woolly headed and I really hope it stops.
To his credit, Wood seemed confident it would. He pointed out the Climate Change Commission will report on carbon budgeting early next year. The law requires the Government to respond with an emissions-reduction plan for all NZ.
Kirk Hope, from Business NZ, told the conference the carbon budget proposals would be “confronting”. He also said we have to do it.
Norman called for the commission to have statutory powers to influence the price of carbon in the same way the Reserve Bank is in charge of monetary settings.
“Surely climate change is as important as inflation,” he said.
Rod Carr, chair of the commission, declined to say he agreed.
“We’ll give the politicians some tough goals,” he said. “It’ll be up to them. But put it this way: If they fail, perhaps we’ll need a larger role.”
Wood is upbeat. “The job is to get things done in this space.” He meant transformational transport projects. I asked him if the PM and his other colleagues saw it the same way. “Yes,” he said.
He listed the “priority projects” that were “not many years away” from being completed. Most are under construction now: The City Rail Link, the Eastern Busway, electrification of the rail line to Pukekohe, rapid bus from the airport to Manukau, and a new “third main” line dedicated to freight in South Auckland.
Wood’s list also contained two projects where there has been no material progress. One was SkyPath, allowing cycling and walking across the Auckland Harbour Bridge, and the other was light rail from the city centre to Mangere.
The Ministry of Transport will report on the light rail options soon. Wood believes the new Government is poised to make a decision and, finally, get moving.
He didn’t mention light rail to the west, or the extra roads announced in January. And he didn’t mention a new harbour crossing, except to say it was listed in Atap (the Auckland Transport Alignment Project) for the 2030s.
All these projects will affect congestion but they may not have the decarbonisation effect Wood is hoping for. Independent analyst Paul Winton had some startling news about the $20 billion the Government plans to spend on transport infrastructure.
His modelling suggests it will have very little impact on emissions.
“Climate change isn’t an infrastructure problem,” Winton said. “What we need is behavioural change, with clear leadership from the Government.”
Andrew Caseley, the chief executive at the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, asked him what three priorities he would present to Cabinet. Winton’s answer:
● A campaign to persuade people to travel less and work at home.
● Treat active travel as public transport, by allocating much more space to it. Dollar for dollar, he said, cycling is 20 times more effective at reducing emissions than regular public transport.
● Put four times as many buses into service, and make space on the roads for them.
You’d save the $20b, he said, and be far more effective.
None of this is currently planned, by the Government or Auckland Transport (AT).
AT’s CEO, Shane Ellison, disagrees with Winton on some things, but he did say: “If we want to reduce carbon emissions, doing what we’ve always done ain’t gonna touch the sides.”
As for the minister, he clearly has high hopes, but does he grasp that message? Actually, does anyone in charge of transport planning — including Auckland Transport?
Environment Minister Parker made one of the closing addresses to the conference. His big hope, he said, relates to the goal of net zero emissions by 2050. A goal is one thing. Parker wants the country, within the next three years, to put itself on a “credible pathway” to achieving it.
I’ll report soon in more detail on the conference and on Winton’s work.