Luxon is gaslighting us on climate change

Our CEO Prime Minister is very big on self-written KPIs, and has produced his usual quarterly bullshit report before the election. Given the state of things, this one quite rightly shows he's failing to meet his targets for employment, education, and health. In fact, the only targets he claims that he is meeting are those for crime and climate change. Climate change? Really?

Luxon claims to be "on tack" to meet the first and second emissions budgets, on the basis that MfE's emissions for the period are (just) below the budgets. Those projections were last updated in January, and do not include uncertainty ranges. From the latest inventory report (p 20), the uncertainty in annual emissions is around 8.6%. So against that, claiming to "meet" a budget by 3% (EB1) or 0.7% (EB2) is simply an accounting fiction. Its probable on the numbers that we'll meet EB1, but for EB2, its around 50-50. No honest person would claim that we are going to meet that target.

But don't take it from me. The official judge of whether we are meeting our targets is He Pou a Rangi, the Climate Commission. They produced an annual monitoring report on exactly this question, assessing progress towards our budgets and longer-term targets and assessing whether current policies are sufficient or not. What did they say about the targets in their latest one?

The first emissions budget is likely to be met

Projections show net emissions in the first emissions budget period are expected to be 282.3 MtCO2e against the budget of 290 MtCO2e, an overachievement of 7.7 MtCO2e (see Figure 2.4). This will be formally assessed in the end of budget report in 2027.

However, that came with a caveat that He Pou a Rangi had recommended that the budget be revised to 283 million tons due to methodological changes in how emissions are measured - a recommendation the regime had not just rejected, but legislated to make it impossible for any future government to accept. So what about EB2?

The second emissions budget is at significant risk and that risk has increased in the last year (Figures 2.5 and 2.6). Our 2025 report largely showed moderate risks. This is mostly from increased risks around electricity generation, agriculture and passenger transport.

And later:

Although the Government’s projections indicate the second emissions budget (305 MtCO2e) is likely to be met, the available buffer is smaller than the emissions reductions that are at risk. The budget should therefore still be regarded as at risk. The central estimate (the figure Government modelling expects to happen) of 301.4 MtCO2e in 2030 is 3.6 MtCO2e below the budget (Figure 2.7). Our assessment shows 12.4 MtCO2e of the planned emissions reductions are at significant risk. The high estimate would exceed the budget by 21.7 MtCO2e (Table 2.3).

Basically, a bunch of the emissions reductions the regime is relying on to meet the budget, in agriculture, energy, transport, and industry, are far less likely to happen due to policy changes (such as, oh, abolishing GIDI and the Clean Car Standard, or cancelling the gas phase-out and agricultural emissions pricing), while the regime is also pursuing explicit emissions increases via an LNG terminal and offshore gas drilling. And the expected impact of these policy changes is three times higher than the tiny margin the regime expects to meet the budget by. Again, no honest person would call that "on track". Luxon's claims to be meeting these targets are pure gaslighting.

The reality is simple: if we want to meet our emissions budgets, we need actual policy to do it. We won't get that policy from National, or its arsonist partners. If we want to save ourselves, we need regime change.