Opinion: A climate target for the 1%

The New Zealand Government appears to have ignored the results of their own consultation on climate targets. Photo / Supplied

The Government's climate targets, released earlier this week, demonstrate a blatant disregard for the view of 99% of New Zealanders who submitted to the recent consultation process, who want New Zealand to pursue a clean low-carbon economy. Instead, these are targets for the one percent - polluting big businesses fighting to retain power and maintain the status quo. This highlights a democratic deficit in our country that should make us all ask; how fair, transparent and accountable are the politics of climate change in New Zealand?

In what appears to be an attempt to confuse the public and give the impression New Zealand is committing to more than we really are, the Minister for Climate Change has used 2005 as the base year for the targets rather than 1990, the year the measurement has always been based on in the past. In reality, a 2030 target of 30% below 2005 levels is equivalent to cutting emissions by 11% below 1990 levels. This is worse than the 10-20% we pledged to cut by 2020 five years ago, after the ill-fated Copenhagen Climate Conference in 2009.

To put our target into context the European Union have proposed an emissions reduction target of 40% by 2030 below 1990 levels. In fact, based on analysis from The Climate Institute, New Zealand's target sets it on a path towards having the dirtiest economy in the developed world. The Government's targets have been denounced as a 'con-job' by Greenpeace, 'enormously disappointing' by Oxfam and 'letting down the world' by WWF.

The fact that the Government apparently ignored the results of their own consultation on these targets shows contempt for basic democratic principles and processes. Of the 17,000 submitters who took part in the consultation that was run a couple months ago, 99.5% of them asked for a reduction of at least 20% by 2030, and about 95% called for a target of at least 40% by 2030. The Minister and his Government have instead chosen a climate change target for the 1%.

Sensible businesses understand the volatility that climate change will bring and are seeing the need to pursue a clean low-carbon economy. Those businesses include Z Energy who submitted during the consultation that the Government should put in place a target of a 40% reduction by 2030 on 1990 levels. The Government now has less ambition on climate change than a fossil fuel retailer.

Unfortunately the Government has put the interests of big polluting business over the interests of the people. The low target signals a plan to continue spending more money on expensive highways, delaying urgent public transport projects and opening up more of our seas for risky deep sea oil drilling. This is an economic strategy the rest of the world is turning their back on, with the OECD calling for a reduction of the world's emissions to net zero emissions from fossil fuels in the second half of the century, but one this Government is set to continue.

This is a new era of climate denial from our Government and goes against the deep sense of justice and fairness that New Zealand was built on, entrenching a growing democratic deficit between the people's vision for New Zealand and big polluters vision.

Reversing this power imbalance is going to take everybody. It's going take the local farmers dealing with increased droughts. We're going to need the doctors dealing with the public health crisis from pollution in our cities. The youth groups that want a safe future for the next generation. Faith groups who see the moral need to protect our planet. It's going to need the workers who can't rely on 20th century extractive industries for jobs. The people of the Pacific who are seeing their islands sink under sea level rise. Conservation groups that want to protect our species from further extinction. Tangata whenua fighting to protect their traditional lands and seas. As well as businesses that see the only sensible long-term strategy is one that has sustainability at it's core.

New Zealanders have fought for progress at every stage in our history. This is simply a bump in the road towards progress - but to get over the bump we are going to need a community of people willing and able to build a powerful movement that takes the power back from the 1%, demanding real climate action and that people's interests are put at the top of the agenda, not the polluters.

Ryan Mearns is a Campaign Director at ActionStation, a member-led advocacy group representing over 80,000 people standing for a fair society, a thriving environment and transparent accountable politics.

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