Climate Change is the biggest policy issue facing Aotearoa. With the weather getting worse, and lethal fires and floods everywhere now, cutting emissions to reduce the damage is something the next government needs to really push on.
The main vehicle for that policy push is the Emissions Reduction Plan, a five-yearly exercise done under the Zero Carbon Act in which the government sets out how it is going to meet the emissions reduction budgets it has set. Our first one (covering 2022-2025) was done last year, and it was a bit of a mess. The next one (covering 2026 - 2030) will have to be made next year, by whoever is elected in October. And Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Simon Upton has reviewed the process, and recommended that the Prime Minister really needs to lead the process for it to get the attention it needs:
Parliament's top environment advisor is challenging whoever is the next prime minister to follow Jacinda Ardern's lead and take charge of the plan for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.Which poses an obvious question for voters: do you really think that Chris Luxon - who can politely be described as "climate change action hesitant" - is going to do this? Especially when his prospective coalition partner leads a party of outright climate change deniers, which wants to repeal the Zero Carbon Act, its targets, and all its accountability mechanisms?Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Simon Upton reviewed the country's first plan for cutting planet-heating gases (called the Emissions Reduction Plan) and found Ardern's decision to chair the group leading the efforts was pivotal.
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"Only the prime minister can really call the shots... across multiple agencies," Upton told journalists at a briefing ahead of the release on Wednesday.
"Whoever aspires to be prime minister has got to be willing to get across this."
Which is just another example of how National-ACT will be a disaster for climate change policy, and one that neither Aotearoa or the planet can afford.
