Climate action still biggest test

Covid-19 has been a massive detour, and there have been some other self-inflicted missteps, but the Government is finally making moves to live up to its pledge of being ‘‘transformational’’. Health and labour market reforms have been unveiled, and while they are not yet in place and their efficacy remains untested, there’s no doubt they signal a substantial shakeup of the status quo.

But as the Covid crisis hopefully recedes in the rear-view mirror this year, the mother of all transformational challenges is coming into sharper focus. Climate change is not the clear and present danger that Covid represents, but its potential impacts are far more devastating.

It’s shaping up as a crucial year for climate action – how much is the Government, and by extension each of us, prepared to change and potentially give up to meet our national and international targets to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions?

Pre-Budget announcements are often a way to get two bites of the good-news cherry, but the reaction to a seemingly innocuous unveiling on Sunday of a $67 million package to help the public sector become carbon-neutral shows the heat is going on.

If the public service announcement, which included money to lease more electric cars, and convert coal boilers at schools and hospitals, was an appetiser, it was a wafer-thin one.

Climate activists were distinctly underwhelmed. As one described it, the emissions reductions from getting more public servants into electric cars, and switching schools to cleaner energy, are a fraction of a per cent of what is required and ‘‘so small as to be possibly a distraction’’.

It’s a clear sign, along with court action from climate groups over a major Auckland highway project, that the calls for an urgent response to the climate emergency are growing louder.

The Government response will become clearer after the Budget this week, at which it has signalled both small and large climate announcements. But its platform for a transformational plan will be in response to the independent Climate Change Commission’s ‘‘ambitious but realistic’’ advice package, which will be presented at the end of this month after assessing public feedback.

The commission says New Zealand has to pick up the pace to meet its commitment to net zero emissions of long-lived gases by 2050, and to slash methane emissions from agriculture. The Government has until the end of the year to accept the commission’s recommendations, which include increasing the number of electric vehicles, increasing renewable energy, improving farm practices, and planting more native trees.

The commission argues for a decisive approach to meet the 2050 timeframe – essentially, that there are actions we can take now without relying on future technologies or longer-term behavioural change. For instance, its priority is increasing the numbers of electric vehicles, recognising that getting people out of their cars on to public transport or bikes will take time.

Striking a balance between those approaches will be one of the many challenges for the Government in its climate plan.

The commission says the speed of the transition needs to be steady; ‘‘fast enough to make a difference and build momentum but considered, with room to support people through the change’’.

It’s no easy task, but no transformation is, and there is a huge incentive for all of us to make it work.

It’s no easy task, but ... there is a huge incentive for all of us to make it work.