Throughout its term in government National has been annoyed by repeated unwelcome advice from He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission to move faster, do more, or even just do something. But Rod Carr's term as commission chair expired over the weekend, as did those of two other board members. And National has taken the opportunity to remove this source of irritation by replacing them with three new people who will not challenge the government's "do nothing" stance:
Former Governor General Dame Patsy Reddy has been appointed as the new chair of the Climate Change Commission, replacing Rod Carr whose term ended last week.The most noticeable point here is that unlike those they are replacing, none of the new appointees are climate change experts (Leining was a policy wonk from Motu, Renwick is a climate scientist who had been a lead author for the IPCC, and Carr had an interest, took the role seriously, and learned on the job). The new people have plenty of governance experience, but only tangential interest in climate change (Reddy has none, Underhill is interested in hydrogen, and McLean has conservation credentials). So its a very real deskilling of the Commission, which will almost certainly impact on the quality of its advice.[...]
Watts also appointed Felicity Underhill and Devon McLean as climate commissioners, replacing Catherine Leining and Professor James Renwick.
The second point to note is that a former Governor-General is the ultimate safe pair of hands. Reddy may bring mana to the role, but fundamentally will not challenge anything or rock the boat in any way. Backing this up, she was previously chosen to review New Zealand's spy agencies, a review as usual saw them given greater powers. So no threat of recommending anything which might change things or see anyone forced to do things differently - unlike Carr, who very much rocked the boat and said loudly "we have to change!"
And thirdly, Underhill is from the fossil fuel industry (Shell, Origin) and a hydrogen quack. She is currently a director of fossil fuel company Channel Infrastructure. Which seems like a significant conflict of interest.
While none of these appointments are as bad as those National has made to the Human Rights Commission, its the same agenda at play: sabotage a key institution and effectively prevent it from challenging National's agenda. He Pou a Rangi is simply not an institution we can have confidence in going forward. Fortunately, the Greens are now producing their own emissions reduction plans, so they'll do the job it National's strapped-chicken commission won't.
