Climate Change: Underwhelming

The Greens had their pre-election AGM on the weekend, and released their manifesto, including their climate change policy. Unfortunately, its a bit underwhelming. Climate change is the biggest policy challenge facing humanity, and Aotearoa needs to do a lot more if we are to meet our Paris commitments and the 1.5 degree target. And the Greens are offering us... the status quo. Oh, there are tweaks: a standalone Ministry, moving control of ETS settings to the Climate Change Commission and out of the hands of politicians - but these are bureaucratic fiddles. There's no new policies for emissions reduction, no increased ambition, nothing substantive.

On the one hand, this is probably to be expected. James Shaw is the Climate Change Minister, and the status quo is (mostly) his policy. So of course he's focused on fixing the bits where Labour has over-ruled him. But on the gripping hand, it is clear that what we are currently doing is simply nowhere near what we need to be doing. And on that front, a wishy-washy promise to simply "price" agricultural emissions seems weak, leaving open the crucial questions of "how much" and "how much will you shrink the sector by". Because that dirty, inefficient, polluting sector needs to shrink if we are to lower emissions (and improve water quality), and pretending it doesn't does no-one any favours.

This is still the best climate change policy on offer. But I expected more from the Greens. And if they're not going to offer what's required, then who will?