Biggest climate policy in a generation but political consensus remains fragile

Yesterday’s release of the Emissions Reduction Plan is meant to be the capstone of its central climate change policy, begun with the Zero Carbon Act passed last term.

This plan is meant to be the big deal — it’s when we see policy; it’s when the Government answers the “how” question we’ve been asking for decades. We know we need to reduce emissions, but how?

This is itself a fundamental change. What is underappreciated is that the whole process of the Zero Carbon legislation has changed the way we talk about climate change. Prior to this, climate change politics asked two key questions: how much should we reduce emissions, and how do we achieve those emissions reductions?

Climate Change Minister James Shaw’s decision to suffer extensive political flagellation (some from his own side) to get NZ First and National Party support for the Zero Carbon Act, and, just last week, for the Government’s emissions budgets, neutered the first question as a political issue. That means there is no longer serious party political debate about how much emissions need to be slashed: Labour, National, and the Greens are on the same page (Act thinks they’re too much, Te Pati Maori thinks they’re not enough). Debates about the extent of emissions reduction will now take place between political parties and extraparliamentary groups like

Greenpeace. What this means is that debate now shifts to the second question: how to reduce those emissions in line with the targets and where the costs of reducing those emissions fall: on businesses or households? Despite the parliamentary love-in over the broad support from the emissions budgets last week, there are still clear signs the Government is concerned about political buy-in for reducing emissions.

Monday’s plan is the biggest single policy win for tackling climate change in New Zealand political history. However, stressing that too strongly disguises the fact that the real political battle for climate change was won last week when National extended its commitment from backing just the Zero Carbon Act to the emissions budgets as a whole.

Fears over the political toxicity of inflation persist — and those fears show just how fragile the political consensus over tackling climate change could become.