Back in December, the Labour Party sabotaged our climate change policy, ignoring advice from the Climate Commission and Climate Change Minister James Shaw in order to keep carbon prices low. This caused a collapse in the carbon price, as people lost confidence in the scheme and fled the market. And that's a Bad Thing, because, as the Climate Change Commission keeps pointing out, we need high carbon prices to drive the gross emissions reductions we want, and stop people burning coal and gas. In other words, Labour's short-sighted, chickenshit decision is likely to have a significant impact on whether we can meet our carbon emissions budget.
This is the sort of thing you'd expect the Climate Change Minister to be paying attention to. So back in April, I filed an OIA request, asking for advice and communications on the impacts of this decline in carbon prices. Today - two months late - I finally received the response. There's some talking points and spin to journalists, and a weekly update on what the price is and how it compares internationally. But on the actual, substantive issue, it's LOL, of course not:
No dedicated advice related to the impacts of the drop in the NZU (Emission unit) price has been produced by the Ministry for the Environment since December 2022.This is appalling. This is our central policy for reducing emissions, and the price it produces is the key driver of emissions reductions. A Minister who was serious about their portfolio and paying attention would be asking their Ministry if this was a problem which we might need to do something about (though if the Ministry was doing their job properly, the Minister wouldn't have to ask at all). Instead, it seems like everyone's eye is resolutely off the sporting metaphor. The most important public policy issue of our time, which is already flooding cities and threatening to bankrupt local government, and even the Ministers who supposedly care about it just aren't paying attention.
And meanwhile, that central policy continues to collapse around us. Today, the carbon price fell to $46/ton, a level not seen since 2020, at which time it was still profitable to burn coal. I wonder if the Minister is finally paying attention now?
