Special Debate — GLOBE-NZ—Report

Metadata

Sitting date: 13 Apr 2017

This page displays your selected transcript. You may view the recorded PTV video using the "Video" tab. Please note that the video tab displays all available video for the sitting day of the transcript. A filter will be available to find the specific debate / speech you wish to view.

SPECIAL DEBATES
Greenhouse Gas Emissions—GLOBE-NZ Report
Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green): I move, That the House note the report entitled Net Zero in New Zealand: Scenarios to achieve domestic emissions neutrality in the second half of the century prepared by Vivid Economics on behalf of GLOBE-NZ. I seek leave to table the report.
Mr SPEAKER: I think this is a significant moment. I will certainly put the leave to the House, but I do acknowledge that it has been well distributed. Leave is sought to table that particular GLOBE-NZ report. Is there any objection to it being tabled? There is not. It can be tabled.
Report, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.
Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM: The debate this afternoon marks the end of the Vivid Economics project and the beginning of something new in New Zealand climate policy. I thank all the members of GLOBE-NZ for their collegial engagement, especially the executive committee of the Hon Peter Dunne, Marama Fox, Tracey Martin, Scott Simpson, and Dr Megan Woods. I give appreciation, of course, to the Minister and to yourself, Mr Speaker, for your high levels of interest and support.
The Vivid Economics report reflects unprecedented cross-party collaboration. It provides an opportunity for developing an ambitious pathway to domestic emissions neutrality, as called for in the Paris Agreement. Nothing is more critical to the fate of New Zealand and the well-being of future generations. I think the very fact that this debate is being held testifies to that. May I pay tribute to the Vivid Economics team in London: John Ward, Alex Kazaglis, and Paul Sammon, who now know New Zealand better than they ever dreamt they would. I also pay tribute to their broader team in London as well, and, of course, the donors here in New Zealand for making it possible, and may I single out Sir Stephen Tindall, who led in that respect. Finally, I pay tribute to Catherine Leining, our Wellington-based consultant, to whom we all owe a huge vote of thanks.
James Shaw will convey the Green Party's initial views on the report itself. I shall confine myself to a broader observation, which is, perhaps, more a Green perspective on the shared vision that is GLOBE-NZ. I do so because, only weeks after its release and with an election ahead, we must none the less ask ourselves: where to from here? The report identifies four scenarios for achieving emissions neutrality, three of which would achieve the goal in the second half of the century as the Paris Agreement calls for. We shall no doubt be discussing with our cross-party group which of these, or which combination of them, might have the most policy merit, for, ultimately, we need to move from scenarios to policy. The tectonic tension in this respect will be over two broad considerations: the speed with which we must move, on the one hand, and the need for economic stability and distributional justice as we go—the imperative of urgency and the art of transition. We shall all have our views.
From my personal perspective I think the following: I have been working on climate change since 1989. The first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report of 1990 and the Rio convention of 1992 made clear the consequences of dangerous climate change and the need to avoid it. Since then our annual global emissions have risen hugely and so have our national emissions. We have lost a quarter of a century through largely ineffectual old-style negotiations, which we pursue in short-term, competitive, zero-sum style. That is not the way to solve 21st century global commons problems. I say this more in sorrow than in anger. We are where we are. But it leaves us with a far higher gradient of challenge than when we started and we have very little time left. It was only yesterday that Christiana Figueres, former UN climate head and now UN climate ambassador, identified 2020 as the year in which global carbon emissions must peak for the 2 degree goal in the Paris Agreement to be realised.
So where to from here for New Zealand? I believe the report will be invaluable in facilitating cross-party policy debate—and throughout the country. In particular, I hope that we can pursue in more depth the challenge posed in scenario four of the report: neutrality by 2050. I know this will be difficult, but I know it also to be an imperative and a broader challenge to place domestic neutrality in the context of New Zealand's overall national responsibility level within the finite and diminishing global carbon budget.
So let us continue our discussions informally around the table and see how far and how fast we can proceed, blending short-term and longer-term responsibilities because, ultimately, they are one and the same, and, ultimately, we are all in this extraordinary saga together.
SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Might I start my contribution on this momentous debate with a message to the good people of Coromandel, who, this afternoon, have bearing down upon them the remains of Cyclone Cook. My advice is to go home and stay home. Do not go out onto the roads unless it is absolutely necessary. My best wishes are with you. Look after your neighbours. I am heading home as fast as I can.
Across the House this is a momentous debate. The popular perception of this Parliament is that MPs constantly work in an adversarial manner, constantly batting their sharp tongues and their policy initiatives against each other, constantly trying to score points and constantly trying to outwit and outmatch each other. Much of that occurs to the absolute bemusement of most New Zealand voters. This report—this very fine Vivid report—is an example of our Parliament working, I think, at its very best. That 35 members of this Parliament—representative of every party in this House—could come together to embark upon a project of common interest, of shared interest in climate change and climate change issues, is, I think, a historic and momentous event.
I wish to thank Dr Kennedy Graham, who chairs the New Zealand chapter of GLOBE International. I want to thank my parliamentary colleagues, I want to thank the funders who have made this report possible, and I want to thank, of course, the Vivid team, which has actually produced it.
This report is actually Vivid's report. This is not our report as MPs. This does not belong to one particular party. This is a report that, I hope, many New Zealanders will read, will think about, will debate, and will engage with in an active, informed conversation about the options that we as a country might take in order to fulfil our ambitious Paris Agreement obligations.
It is appropriate that parties will and should have different policy perspectives. There will be differences across this Parliament about how we might, as a party or as a Government or as a nation, achieve those climate change commitments that we as a nation have signed up to. That is good and proper. That is as it should be, because there will be differences in tone, there will be differences in focus, and there will be differences in the pace and speed of initiatives that are going to be required to achieve those targets. That is something that we should not shy away from; it is something that we should not shirk from.
This report, and the various scenarios that are enunciated in it and are given up for debate and discussion, are all long term. We have got ourselves, as a world, into this situation over a long period of time, and it is going to take us a long period of time to change the direction in which we are going, in which we are traveling. Some would say that we do not have much time, and I am of that opinion, so I am very fascinated by the various scenarios that are presented to us.
Although this piece of work starts the conversation, the actual impacts, the cost, the implementations, and the fine detail remain unanswered. This piece of work is a beginning of a conversation. It is a beginning of a debate in this Parliament. It is a beginning of a debate that we should be having as a nation. It is not an end piece in its own right. So I hope that, as a result of this very good report, there will be widespread discussion, there will be widespread debate amongst politicians, amongst any New Zealander who has an interest in the future of the globe and the future of New Zealand's environment and our place and part in both those important areas.
I want to acknowledge the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Climate Changes Issues, the Hon Paula Bennett. I think this Minister brings to this debate a remarkable communication skill. In her own inimitable style and way, she is able to bring to this issue of climate change a vocabulary and a style that I think is important if we are, as a nation, to grasp the imagination and the hearts of middle New Zealand. And so I am very pleased that she has been so involved in this process right from the beginning, and I am looking forward to hearing her later on.
This Government's focus is on how to transition to a low-carbon economy while still promoting jobs, incomes, and a growing economy. This report, I think, is the foundation stone of a starting point of a national, nationwide debate, and I commend it to the House and to all New Zealanders.
TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First as the member of the executive for New Zealand First on GLOBE-NZ. Firstly, can I acknowledge Kennedy Graham as the chair—but not just the chair, the driving force. To be perfectly frank, we would not have all come together if Kennedy had not spent hours and hours and hours of time chasing us up with emails, making sure that we were mollycoddled along, some of the time. So it was like herding cats, and Kennedy did it very, very well.
What we have produced, what we now claim successful, what we have produced as a Parliament with 35 members, ultimately, across the Parliament, is a document that starts us on a pathway. I was in the European Union with the Hon Annette King and Melissa Lee a fortnight ago. This report was released on the 21st. We arrived into Brussels on the 22nd and they knew about it. They wanted to know what we thought about it, they wanted to know what the next steps were for New Zealand. That is how interested they are, in Europe. It was raised again in the United Kingdom when we went there, because they know, like we know, that this is a worldwide issue and that every country must make its own pathway to participate towards what we have committed to with regard to the Paris Agreement.
I also want to acknowledge the Hon Paula Bennett, because the Minister interacted. The Minister was open-minded, participated, and had the power to shut it down. I want to acknowledge the leaders of other political parties, those who are in the executive and those who are not—the Rt Hon Winston Peters, Andrew Little, James Shaw, and others—because those leaders participated. Again, this is what has given us this really solid piece of ground on which to bounce off.
My colleague Denis O'Rourke will speak in more depth to New Zealand First's response to the contents of the report, but we do have the capacity. I would tend to personally agree with Kennedy Graham that we need to be looking at neutrality by 2050, and I believe we have, and I am going to recommend the science dinners to every member of Parliament. The numbers need to go up there, people, because the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research has done some amazing work, funded by the people of New Zealand, that will help us around soil saturation, the best use of pasteurisation, and where we can go from here.
We need to have a wider conversation—and this will inform it—around the spread of electric vehicles and the policy constraints and the policy constructions. Is it more charging stations that actually take away distance anxiety? Is it low-cost loans that mean more people can actually buy second-hand electric vehicles? But how will we deal with the fossil fuel vehicles that are then going to be dumped on to the side of the road? All these conversations are now possible because of this report, and they are all possible amongst us all because of GLOBE-NZ—because of what Kennedy Graham pulled together out of this Parliament.
I also want to acknowledge the Speaker. The Speaker did not have to give permission to have this debate. This is a special event, and I think he did so because he recognised that for the New Zealand Parliament to come together in such a collaborative way is unusual, and it is something that needs to be recognised and given this opportunity.
As I say, my colleague Denis O'Rourke will speak to it more, but we do want to acknowledge that Vivid Economics came all the way out here. This was not a cheap report, and it should not be, because downstream it is incredibly important to us as a nation—as a trading nation—because it is going to become more and more important, as everybody is going to want to know how we are participating in this particular issue.
I want to close by saying that I became more passionate about this issue when I visited Tuvalu. We have a responsibility not only to our nation and to the planet, but we really, really need to look to our Pacific neighbours and what our responsibility is in trying to put a cap on what is happening there. Other conversations about climate change refugees and so on will evolve downstream, but there is an immense urgency to this issue, and some of it has to do with those who we must care about most, and those are our Pasifika neighbours. Thank you.
Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker, kia ora tātou katoa. Can I just start by acknowledging all of the acknowledgments made already by those who have been a part of this working party. My colleague Marama Fox was certainly a part of it, and I have very much appreciated the involvement. Can I also acknowledge Kennedy Graham for driving this kaupapa. He drove it so much that he forced me to make a statement in the House this afternoon on behalf of our party. So thank you very much Kennedy, and I appreciate your commitment to this kaupapa. Ka nui te mihi.
Issues about climate change are not things that I really know too much about. What I do know about is the effect that it is having on communities at this point in time, in particular in my rohe of Waiariki. I am thinking about those communities of Edgecumbe, Ruātoki, and Ruatāhuna. As we debate this particular issue I send my thoughts and, I am sure, those of the House back to those families and those kāinga back at Waiariki and, indeed, throughout the country as we experience a not very nice Easter weekend.
Governments of the world have agreed to limit average global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius. The Paris Agreement, which New Zealand ratified on 4 October 2016 and which came into force on 4 November 2016, commits us and the world to the so-called net zero goal by the end of the century, and puts in place a longer-term framework to achieve this by agreeing to a new universal climate change agreement. This new universal climate change agreement needs to set the world on a clear path of a decline in emissions over time. The reality of the science indicates that global emissions need to be halved by 2050, and, at some point in the second half of the century, emissions need to be so low that healthy ecosystems such as forests can readily absorb the emissions that are left.
A transformation to a climate-neutral, clean-energy economic model needs to occur now. In those areas where it has begun it is already delivering huge benefits in and between nations. While the goal of the Paris Agreement is very clear, how different countries achieve this is not so clear. The Vivid Economics report identified that for New Zealand the transition to emission neutrality will require more than the current practice. It will require changes in land use and pathways relying less on breakthrough technologies and energy, and agriculture will require more extensive forestation by 2050.
It could be possible for New Zealand to reach net zero emissions by 2050 by combining the high uptake of technological innovation with a switch to less emissions-intensive agricultural production, higher levels of forestation, and the end of energy-intensive industries. Substantial gaps in New Zealand's evidence base on domestic mitigation must be addressed to support well-informed decision-making in the future, and the Māori Party wants to be a part of this.
However, the Māori Party believes that New Zealand's ability to achieve domestic emissions neutrality in the second half of the century and to meet its medium- and long-term emission reduction obligations is fundamentally flawed, as current policies allow for emitters to offset their obligations with low-cost credits without the need to reduce emissions. Current policies incentivise major emitters who have been able to purchase cheap Ukrainian units to surrender these to meet their obligations, while charging Māori, and indeed New Zealand households, a huge, out-of-reach price for units.
We also believe that there has been some negligible investment in low-emission technologies, resulting in foresters leaving the changed system, and planting is virtually zero. This has a huge impact on Aotearoa, and also on those hapū and iwi who have received large forests as a part of their Treaty settlements and so have large carbon credits that are virtually worthless. This sort of statement has been made to me in the Waiariki area.
So we welcome the Vivid report, which highlights our forestation as one way forward. The Māori Party would want to see change within the climate area, as it has also got huge implications socially, economically, and culturally, as well as environmentally. The Māori Party is committed to ensuring New Zealand's natural resources and environment are healthy for everyone, and to supporting the health and well-being of our people. This requires that environmental degradation is addressed. We believe New Zealand has time to transition to a low-emissions economy, but there are benefits to taking strategic action and signalling long-term actions now. We support the outcome of this report.
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I want to note the extraordinary irony that we are having this debate today while the remnants of Cyclone Cook bear down upon our country, and it was only a couple of weeks ago that we had another such event. We used to call them once-in-a-hundred-year events; now, we recognise they are the manifestation of climate change in our part of the world. So for anyone who ever retains a doubt, I say to them, look at contemporary history for your answer.
I am very proud to be a member of the New Zealand executive of GLOBE-NZ, and I want to acknowledge immediately Dr Kennedy Graham for his leadership, his chairmanship, and his gentle but persuasive manner in making sure that this project—which at the time it was explained to me, sometime last year, seemed fanciful—has come to fruition. We should not underestimate the significance of the fact that we are having this debate in Parliament today. It has been many years since Parliament has set aside its time for a debate of this nature on a special topic of interest, and it is appropriate that this should be the occasion.
The report from the Vivid Economics group paints four scenarios for New Zealand for the future. We need to consider those, we need to debate them, and we need to pick from them the best way forward.
I say "we" because this is a parliamentary responsibility. This is not, in my view, a responsibility limited to the particular Government of the day. It is a parliamentary responsibility, and we as parliamentarians have to take control of it and drive it forward, because the goals that New Zealand sets for the next 50 years, the next 100 years, and beyond will go long beyond all of our time in this place. It is not just the responsibility of this particular Government or those that will follow. I draw the contrast with the British House of Commons, where the House of Commons, as a House, voted to determine what the United Kingdom's priorities in terms of its emissions profile ought to be. I believe that this report gives us the opportunity to start to move in that direction in terms of New Zealand's policy response for the future.
One important step that has already taken place has been that the GLOBE-NZ group has recognised that the achievement of this report is, if you like, the end of the beginning, but the next phase is now upon us. We have to move as a group, collectively, but we can move only at the pace that the movement itself will allow. I was a little concerned, I have to say, earlier today during question time, not so much about the exchange of questions with the Minister for Climate Change Issues, but about the fact that there were attempts being made to elicit a Government response at this early stage. I think that is unfortunate. I think we need this process to unfold and for the discussion between parties to occur, and for us then to be in a position to move forward collectively, if we are to make sustainable progress.
I must say I think the signs are very promising. We have a Minister for Climate Change Issues at the moment who is, I think, extraordinarily interested in this subject and has shown a very strong sense of willingness to work alongside—and I use that word advisedly—GLOBE-NZ. We have had Ministers in the past who would have felt that in such circumstances, their role was to advise GLOBE-NZ what its position should be. The current Minister wants, I think, to work in step with GLOBE-NZ and the provisions of the report.
I think the members of the executive committee, despite our very wide political differences, have a common view that we ought to be able to make some progress here. If I can draw him into the debate—he has not spoken yet—I want to pick up a point that the Hon David Parker made in an earlier discussion, which is that talk is very well up to a point, but there does need to be sustainable action to follow. I agree with that, but there is a sequence of events as well. We need to do the preparatory work. We have the baseline from the GLOBE-NZ document, we now need to have the discussions between parties, and then we need to have a clear and defined course of action that all of us can sign up to and that we can expect to be implemented, regardless of the relative positions that parties occupy in this House.
This is a momentous event. We should not let it pass unremarked. We should commit ourselves as a Parliament to now work together, collaboratively, to give effect to the best-possible climate policy for New Zealand in the years ahead.
Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): It is my pleasure to take a call in this debate. I would like to acknowledge the people who have already been acknowledged. I would like to acknowledge Dr Kennedy Graham for his work. I would also like to acknowledge Catherine Leining, who is in the gallery today for this debate, and also our former climate change ambassador, Adrian Macey, who is in the gallery and who is also doing a great deal of work to bring around good conversations around climate and our response to it in New Zealand.
It has been a pleasure to be a member of the GLOBE-NZ executive and to work with members of Parliament from across the House to draw this report together. I am not taking one of the 5-minute calls as a member of the executive because I want to allow further members of our caucus who have an interest in climate to take calls on this.
It is now that we get into the substantive debate around this report and what it says. I think this report has done something very important in the climate debate in New Zealand, in that it has allowed political consensus around the problem. We have, in one place, a document that states very clearly what the challenge is and what we need to address. We know that the current path we are on is not a course for us either to meet our commitments under international agreements or to stop the rate of temperature increase below 2 degrees, let alone 1.5 degrees. I think something that everybody can agree on is that that is where we should be aiming for.
I am always wary of talking about weather and climate in the same paragraph. But what we cannot ignore any longer is the frequency of extreme weather events that are occurring. Climate change is not something abstract. Climate change is not something we can ignore. This afternoon, more than ever, we can see climate change on our doorstep, and it is something that we have to take action on.
This report has a number of key findings, and it recommends some policies for the future. The key findings are around the ways in which we need to transform our economy to put us on a path towards carbon neutrality and to drastically reduce our carbon emissions, which is not the path we are currently on. This is about structural transformation of our economy and how we can achieve that.
What the report does make clear, and where it is very optimistic, is that this is entirely possible for New Zealand. We have a set of circumstances around our resources that mean we can do this, should we turn our minds to it. We have the ability to produce renewable energy, unlike many other countries, in the volume that we require to truly complete the transition from fossil to renewable energy. That is incredibly important. We have the opportunity around afforestation, and we have the ability to make sensible decisions about land use in this country and about what is fit for the future.
What the report also does—and I would like to acknowledge the report writers from Vivid Economics, who spent time in New Zealand talking to people and, I think, got to terms with what was happening across our economy and the different places where change needs to be made in a remarkable way to synthesise a lot of the work that has happened in New Zealand. They made some key recommendations in terms of policy: that we need to apply a shadow emission price consistent with the Paris Agreement, and that we need to make sure the way in which we price carbon sets us on a track to achieving the targets that we have signed up to internationally. This is something that the Labour Party has long agreed on, and some other parties across the House will too, I am sure, around the need to carbon-budget. We need to say "Where do we need to get to, and what are the changes we need to make to get there?", just like you would with any form of budgeting. You have to have a sense of what you need to save and where you can spend.
We also need a robust and predictable emission price within our emissions trading scheme. This has to be robust and predictable, but the report also does not ignore the cow in the room. The report makes it very clear that in order to have an effective way of pricing carbon within our economy, we must bring agriculture within our emissions trading scheme. It is always somewhat daunting, as Labour's climate change spokesperson, to sit next to the man who brought together New Zealand's emissions trading scheme, the Hon David Parker. When the emissions trading scheme was put in place in New Zealand, the intent was never to leave agriculture out for this long. We are creating a situation where we will face shocks in our economy unless we plan a transition towards that, and that is something we need. Let us always remember that the emissions trading scheme is a tool, one of many alongside regulatory instruments we have; it is not a climate strategy. That is something that we always need to be cognisant of.
We need to support further research and development, and we need to make sure that we are bringing cross-party approaches to this, but let us be clear: there are still political differences within this House—and so there should be. We have not overnight become a one-party State when it comes to climate policy. There still needs to be robust debate about the types of changes we need to make within our economy in order for us to reach the targets we need to.
One of the passages in the report that I was especially pleased to see is the portion of the report that talks about the transition and how we need to ensure that this is a fair transition. As Labour's climate spokesperson, I am the person who has to front up to coal mining delegates on a regular basis. We simply cannot close our eyes and not put in place the kinds of long-term planning we need to, across our economy, and that includes workforce planning and skills planning to ensure that we have a workforce that is ready and equipped for the needs of a low-carbon economy.
We need to ensure that our education policy is aligned with where we need to go, and that is why I was so pleased to see, when Labour launched its 3 years' free tertiary education policy, that Andrew Little talked specifically about the need for the retraining of the workforce in the face of climate change. This is the kind of long-term and future-focused thinking that we simply must be doing, because I am not prepared to not make the changes that we need to make without a long-term plan, and put the future of individuals and communities at risk. We have to be putting that thinking into place now.
But there is much in this report to be excited about. Do we have to make changes in our economy? Yes. Do these changes create opportunities for New Zealand? Of course they do. What we have in this report is in many ways a vision for a 21st century economy. It is an economy that talks about the need not just to add commodity agricultural products to the basket but to really think about how we can make the best use of them. This is the future of value-added agricultural products for New Zealand, and this is exciting. This is the kind of New Zealand that I want. This is a New Zealand that puts in place the right incentives for us to be afforesting our country and making sure that we are doing that. This is a report that puts in place the kinds of thinking we need for low-carbon industries. Not only do we need to transition our vehicle fleet from fossil to electricity, and the kind of increase in generation we will need to do that, but we also need to think about our industrial heat.
Other countries are doing this, and we cannot be left behind. Iceland, for example, at the moment is putting together an economic development plan that is about it being the world's best producer of aluminium because it can be made solely from renewable energy. We have strategic advantage in this country; we need to ensure that we tap into that.
It has been a pleasure to work with colleagues from across the House in bringing this report. It is now the basis for us to pick up the pace, to quicken the debate, and to ensure that New Zealand is on the path towards a low-carbon future. We simply cannot delay this; it is too important.
STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Can I begin by acknowledging Dr Kennedy Graham and the work that he has done in leading the GLOBE group here in New Zealand. I would have to say that the work, as has already been alluded to—he has been tireless in this whole endeavour. I have to say, and I am sure all the GLOBE members will agree, it has been a great collegial exercise. It has been a fantastic opportunity to get to know other people from across the House at a different level, and to discuss things of common interest. So I really do appreciate the work that you did, Kennedy.
With that in mind, I think my role today is to speak about the National caucus and where we sit on this. I very much enjoyed working with my colleagues, led by Scott Simpson, to sort out our foundation stones that we could agree on, across the other parties, as a basis to work forward for our response to climate change. I think that is a really important place to start. As has already been said, this cannot be about a party, and it cannot be about a Government; it has to be about Parliament, because it is—as, Kennedy, you said—a commons issue. So we have to think in that way.
The report itself, I think, is a great report. It offers four different options, but, of course, we are really talking about the top two or three as the ones that we will be considering, I believe, across the House. I think one of the things that we have to think about in the future is agriculture and the emissions trading scheme (ETS) and how that might respond. My own view is that we have to get a few things in place before agriculture could be involved in an ETS. I think it is important that those people impacted by this trading scheme have to have the mechanisms to actually mitigate their emissions, and at the moment that is not possible under the current technologies, although this space is moving very quickly.
If we go back to 1998 through to 2008, there was a tremendous amount of change in the dairy industry and there was great growth in dairy herd. So farming systems and farming choices of how land is used can change very, very quickly. I think that we do not want to underestimate that that could happen on its own in response to other market forces, so I am not too keen for New Zealand to foist an economic hair shirt on itself simply to meet a goal that would only force that production to go offshore, into an environment where the net damage to the environment may, in fact, be worse.
I think of the example of aluminium being manufactured in Iceland when, indeed, we can manufacture high-grade aluminium here from renewable sources. I think the world needs aluminium, high-grade aluminium, and doing it from renewable energies is a very good place to keep it. To force it offshore may well, in fact, have a less desirable impact on the environment. So we have to be very mindful of all of those.
One of the issues with enteric methane is that it is a different gas—a different carbon dioxide climate-change gas. In fact, that has even been recognised by Generation Zero, with its Zero Carbon Act. In the proposal it proposed baskets of gas, and a flow gas like methane being in a separate basket that would not have a zero target for it. I think that is really worthy of consideration. I also like its idea of 5-year targets and checking against those. We have had the pleasure of having Lord Deben out here, who talked to us, and I know that he proposes a similar process.
I think all of those things are very worthy of consideration, and, certainly, the National Government agrees with that. I go back to where I began and say that, really, I am very happy to be involved in such a collegial group. We have got a very big task ahead of us. We are only very early in the process. I think we have got a long way to go, but we just have to continue to keep working in the way that we are, and we will get the result that will be in the interests of everyone in New Zealand. I will leave it there and commend it to the House.
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): Can I add my thanks to Kennedy Graham and to the philanthropists who sponsored the report. They were very generous—they were more generous than they initially realised they were going to have to be, because there was a bit more work in this than was realised.
If we in New Zealand cannot sustain our environment, what country in the world can? I find that a very uncomfortable question because it, effectively, says that if New Zealand does not, the world will not. It is actually not a very nice future for the world or for our children.
We know that the planet is already over halfway to 2 degrees warming. We know that if we are to meet our carbon budget and stay below 2 degrees, we have actually got to stop the remaining one-third of that—or more than the remaining one-third of that—budget being released. At current trends, they will all be out there in the atmosphere in the next 15 to 20 years. We are running out of time. We have got the Arctic soon to be ice-free in the summer; in the centre of the Arctic, particularly. We have got record temperatures being recorded semi-annually. We have got glaciers in Greenland, New Zealand, and Antarctica all melting. We have got whole Pacific Island nations sinking under the rising sea. We seem to be able, as a world, to cater for that because they are small populations, despite the fact that we are losing entire cultures. I remember one of the most frightening things I discovered, and other people probably knew this when I first discovered it some years ago: a metre rise in sea level means 30 million Bangladeshi people have to move. Where do they go? Where do they go?
I come back to one of the propositions that I thought I heard the Minister saying, which was, effectively, that we have to choose either a clean environment or a strong economy. I reject that dichotomy. We can have both. As others have said, I was privileged to be the climate change and energy Minister under Helen Clark's Labour-led Government, and I came to that conclusion that I have earlier suggested: if New Zealand could not overcome our environmental problems, including our contribution to climate-changing gases, there was no hope the world would. I thought that was an incredibly depressing future, and therefore I preferred the framing that we can—and we can—and that we should therefore be a beacon of hope rather than another source of despair. The Vivid Economics report at one level does not actually tell us much more about how we can do it—we have always known what are the sources of emission and the sources of emission reduction—but it does articulate a number of scenarios that would reduce New Zealand's emissions.
One of the points my colleague Dr Megan Woods made is that, whichever scenario you have, you need a carbon budgeting agency to help lead you there, partly because it depoliticises the route there. As to the hope of getting there, I know of no environmental problem to which there is not a solution. There is none. The solution may involve substituting a product, and it might cost a little bit more, but the new practice costs more only if you are not properly calculating or valuing the environmental cost that you are avoiding. When you boil down environmental policy to get to those ends, there are only three choices: education, regulation, and price. We need all of them. Education does not get you there. When the economic or the profit motivation of private enterprise enables one person to compete against someone who is doing it more expensively but cleaner, then you undermine the clean one unless you have a regulational price that stops them being taken out of the market by someone who is willing to cut that environmental corner. We need all three.
In respect of the emissions profile of New Zealand, it is, essentially, half agriculture and half energy. The half in energy splits roughly one-third into transport and electricity, with industrial processes and industrial heat being the final third of that. Electricity, I think, is under control. I know National claims credit for that. I put a bit of work into that myself, but I will not get into that political debate—
Scott Simpson: Truly collaborative.
Hon DAVID PARKER: And my predecessors did too. Electricity production has to double from here and it has to be clean in order for us to overcome our transport challenge, but we can and we will. The answer to that lies in regulation, not price. You know, good ideas have many parents, but it annoys me that some of the ideas that come from this side are left as orphan children; National will not pick them up. It has been clear for years that we need a regulatory standard to drive the adoption of low-emission vehicles, including electric vehicles. That is all you need: a ceiling or an allocation of so many grams per 100 kilometres of travel that descends quite steeply. That will drive the adoption of electric vehicles into the fleet, and you do not need any other instrument at all. It is really simple. This Government tinkers around the edges with stupid rules like giving people a free pass when it comes to their contributing to the cost of roads. That is the wrong approach—we need a regulation.
In respect of land, we need a price on carbon in agriculture. The Vivid Economics report makes this clear at page 17 and says that the underlying economics need the agricultural sector to see a price because that goes to the economics of different land use. It is basic economics. Treasury has said it. It is why the old carbon tax was dumped. Everyone knows it is true, and to hear the National Party members still put their heads in the sand and say it is wrong is galling. It was put this way by New Zealand Oil and Gas recently: "The current Government has tried to put this beyond the purview of their reviews that they have of the ETS notwithstanding their 'see no evil, hear no evil' approach."
New Zealand Oil and Gas said this in 2016: "New Zealand's major source of emissions are energy, transport, and agriculture, and if an attempt is made to meet all of New Zealand's emission reductions from energy and transport, and biological emissions from the agriculture sector continue to be excluded, then the scheme"—that is, the emissions trading scheme (ETS)—"will create economic distortions and unfairness and fail to meet its objectives. These flaws will become more pronounced as the economic impact of the scheme increases." The logic is irrefutable, and anyone in this House who denies that is wrong. It is simple. You can have 90 percent or even 100 percent free allocation for background emissions in agriculture, but if you price their marginal increase in emission or reward them for their decrease, you will have the behavioural change and you will drive the land-use change that is necessary.
I have not got much more time, so I am going to concentrate on what I think is the key recommendation here. Of the three scenarios mentioned in the report, for me the standout one is "Innovative New Zealand" by 2050. I am not scared of it. I think there is real opportunity for us to be wealthier as well as cleaner. Land-use change towards higher-value uses of land—higher value than dairying—are the key to reducing our agricultural emissions. Those who were at the Royal Society forum last night would have seen some amazing presentations of how we have now got this sensor technology. We have got the developing robotics. We have got precision agricultural techniques. These are coming together, with ubiquitous mobile technology, which is also happening. These are coming together to enable a move of far more of our land into horticulture and crop production, which is a higher-value land use with a lower environmental impact. There are still some nitrate challenges—but they can be overcome through precision agriculture—but there are no ruminant emissions from it.
That is the key and it is an exciting future for New Zealand. It is one that is more profitable. There are the technology jobs as well. Some of the technology we were shown last night of the robotic sensing of grapes and some of the information we had about the robotic apple-picking that is already happening in the United States and will be coming to New Zealand in the next few years just shows what an amazing future we have as a country if we just push towards it. We put a huge impediment in the way of that land-use change by not making agriculture take responsibility for its emissions. They are going up. They will go down. Not only that, water quality will improve. We would have avoided the deforestation in the northern forest area around Taupō, etc. that, sadly, happened since this Government took over.
There is a solution here. If we are elected, agriculture will be coming into the ETS very fast. We have always said it should. We have always said its free allocation should start at 90 percent of 2005 emissions. We have not resiled from that. That is a key step, which will drive so much other change. I do not have any more time other than to again express my thanks to all members from various parties who have supported us getting this far through the Vivid Economics report.
JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): As we stand here to debate New Zealand's response to climate change, the second cyclone in the space of a week is bearing down on New Zealand. As this debate got started, my wife sent me a text message to let me know that Ōhope, where she and I had been planning to spend the Easter holiday at my Aunt Sally's house, is currently being evacuated. All of us have the instinct to help people, to help our family and our friends who are caught up in the path of this storm, but we also know that the work that will matter the most is the work of the men and women who are reinforcing the flood banks, the civil defence staff who are preparing for evacuation, and our emergency services that are supporting those in need.
So despite our instincts, us being here in this House preparing our response to the challenge of climate change is actually the best and most important thing that we here can do. It is remarkable that MPs from all parties are here today to find a common pathway to tackle this crisis. We have come a long way since Shane Ardern drove his tractor up the steps of Parliament. Our climate debate here in New Zealand and around the world has gone through four stages of denial: first, that it is not happening; second, that if it is happening, it is not caused by us; third, that if it is caused by us, it actually is not that bad; and, fourth, if it is that bad, well, actually, there is nothing we can do about it. All four of those stages have a response: it is happening, it is us, it is bad, and we can do something about it. It is that fourth and final debate that we are having here today: what we choose to do about it. After more than two decades of dithering and debate—for more than half my lifetime, we have argued about this while our emissions have relentlessly risen—we are well past time to take action.
There is a saying that the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, but the second best time is today. This report maps out the paths that we can take to help halt the climate crisis and to make New Zealand stronger and more resilient and more prosperous. The Green Party is unalterably committed to ambitious action on climate change. We choose the path that will lead New Zealand to net zero emissions by 2050. In Government, the Greens will do what is needed for New Zealand to achieve that goal of having net zero emissions by the year 2050. It will require change in New Zealand, but it will be change for the better. Our homes will be made warmer and healthier and more energy efficient. Our electricity supply will be 100 percent renewable. It will run on wind and geothermal and solar energy. The cars and the vans and the trucks that we drive will be more efficient, more affordable, and electric. Formerly erosion-prone land will be covered in lush new forests and bush, drawing down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. If we take this path, it will create a New Zealand that we love even more than we do today.
Reasonable people often ask me: "Look, New Zealand represents 0.2 percent of global emissions. Why should we take up this challenge?" First of all, the countries that each individually represent one percent or less of global emissions add up to over a third of all global emissions. If every country like New Zealand abrogated its responsibilities, global emissions would continue to rise. Second of all, it is simply the right thing to do and New Zealand has a proud tradition of doing what is right. We did not wait for the rest of the world to get its act together before women won the right to vote. We did not wait for Russia and the US to lay down their arms—and it is clear they have not—before we became nuclear-free. And I do not remember anybody telling us that we should not stand up to apartheid because we were too small to make a difference.
The world needs leaders, especially today. More selfishly, there is so much in it for us. New Zealand has an almost unique opportunity to become the world's first fully sustainable economy anywhere in the world, to show the rest of the world how it is done, and to make our way in the world that way. Consumers around the world are crying out for sustainably grown food and they are willing to pay for it. That is why organic milk powder fetches more than three times on the international market what conventionally produced milk powder does. Our farmers are some of the most productive, most adaptable, and most creative in the world. We can win the race to become the world's leading producer of sustainably created food, and if we lead, other nations will come to us for the technology and the skills that we have created to produce sustainably grown food.
Put simply, the things that we need to do to reduce our own greenhouse gas emissions also present us with the greatest economic opportunity in at least a generation. As the Vivid Economics report itself says, this is a huge challenge, although it is one that is laced with opportunity. For the prosperity of our country and for a New Zealand that we can continue to be proud of, it is an opportunity we must seize.
I would like to finish by acknowledging the work that has gone on in Parliament to produce this report. It may well be lost on people outside of this Chamber actually how big a deal it is to have MPs from every single party in Parliament working together on anything, let alone climate change. It is not just the greatest challenge of our time but the greatest challenge of all time. To all members of Parliament involved in GLOBE-NZ—and there are one in four members of this Parliament involved in GLOBE-NZ—thank you for putting aside your differences to put your country first.
I would like to acknowledge the Hon Paula Bennett, the Minister for Climate Change Issues and Deputy Prime Minister, for a surprisingly open and constructive approach. Things have started to change as a result, in the last 12 months. I would like to say a special word of thanks to Vivid Economics and to the organisations and individuals who sponsored its work and who contributed to it. I would like to thank my colleague and the chair of GLOBE-NZ, Dr Kennedy Graham. As others have said—and I will say it here again—we are here today only because Kennedy has persisted, above petty partisan politics, to shepherd us through to this point. That some things are bigger than politics is a core principle of the Green Party, but I think few embody it as keenly as Kennedy. I am proud to call him my colleague.
Putting New Zealand on a path to a zero-emissions future will require all of us working across the political divide, and getting to net zero emissions by 2050 is going to take all of us and it is going to take everything that we have got. As a different Kennedy once said, some will ask why choose this as our goal? And may they well ask: why climb the highest mountain? We choose this goal not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because that goal will serve to organise and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that goal is one that we are willing to accept, one that we are unwilling to postpone, and one that we intend to win. Thank you.
DENIS O'ROURKE (NZ First): The most important thing I can and will say is this: New Zealand First is completely committed to a cross-party approach to identifying the best pathways for New Zealand to follow to reach our Paris Agreement commitments. Further, we want to see the whole country work together so that shared goals can be worked out and then implemented, and that will require a lot of give and take, not just on behalf of political parties and the Government but also by local government, by business, by communities, and, of course, by individuals.
The second thing I want to say, by way of introduction, is that, yes, the Paris commitments are very challenging and require significant change, even some disruptive change, but the rewards of early action and significant and meaningful action are very high, while the damage to New Zealand's economic, environmental, and social well-being of not taking early and significant actions is likely to be severe, if not very severe. If that is true for New Zealand, then, of course, it is true for all nations. The good news is that New Zealand is particularly well placed to make the necessary changes—much better placed than most nations are—and, actually, Kiwis are good at innovation and they are good at doing the changes at the magnitude needed. We have shown that in our past history, and I am sure we can show it again on this subject.
So we must see all of this much more as a great opportunity for economic and social progress than as just another set of problems to solve. If we believe in that and strive to achieve the targets that we are to set as from today—or as soon as we can—by working together, then we could not leave a greater legacy to our children and our grandchildren and future generations. I believe firmly that we can not only avoid adverse economic effects from policies and actions to achieve those targets, including the need to change our vital agricultural industries, but we can use them to enhance our economic performance through the consistent and sensible use of policies and actions to achieve emissions neutrality sooner rather than later.
The overall goal in the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change is global transition to emissions neutrality—or, in other words, net zero greenhouse gas emissions—by the end of the century. But New Zealand can do that by 2050, and I believe that is the target we should set. GLOBE-NZ's report by Vivid Economics is a very good start for us—in fact, you could see it as a starter motor—in choosing transformational, low-emission pathways for this country by identifying the scenarios possible to achieve domestic emissions neutrality by the second half of the century.
The essence of the report is that the transition to emissions neutrality will require more than just efficiency gains in current practice. Clearly, it also requires significant changes in land use and in energy generation and use. No doubt the pathway relying heavily on breakthrough technologies will take us part of the way, or, in fact, probably most of the way—and increasingly so as time goes on—and we must optimise the opportunities that that pathway offers. However, pathways relying less on those technologies will require much more afforestation, and a start on those opportunities must be made as soon as possible whichever pathway is chosen, not only as a means of offsetting emissions through carbon sequestration but also as a way of enhancing regional economies and job creation, which we in New Zealand First think are important co-objectives.
The report shows that it is possible for New Zealand to reach net zero emissions by mid-century by combining the best elements of all pathways identified, including a high uptake of technological innovation to reduce emissions, the optimisation of afforestation, progressively switching to less emissions-intensive agricultural production, and the closure of energy-intensive industries, although it is also possible to enhance this through the enhancement of internationally energy-competitive industries such as the Bluff aluminium smelter, for example. The options for future efforts as discussed in the report are, therefore, a great template, we feel, for the discussions we need to have as a Parliament and as a nation.
Of the many scenarios discussed, it is already clear that the potential for an innovative transition—not decimation—in New Zealand's agricultural production is available for us to grasp, and the time to start, of course, is now, if we are actually going to succeed with that. The farming industry and its supporting industries, I firmly believe, are both able and willing to do this. So the responsibility on us as a Parliament and as a nation is to stop pointing fingers, especially at the agricultural industry, and to work with our farming communities to ensure that the changes needed are actually made and in ways that enhance economic and social outcomes rather than damage them. Parties and others will, of course, have differences in the degree of strategic emphasis on technological innovation versus diversification of economic activity, as well as in the speed of the transition and in the means or tools that we use. But that will only mean that we need to listen to each other with the objective of finding a way in which we can work together to achieve the outcomes we need.
New Zealand First's climate change policy is clear about obvious actions—to pick the low-hanging fruit—and first amongst those is to progressively phase out the burning of fossil fuels, especially coal and oil, and instead to use renewable energy including wind power, photovoltaic electricity, and, we think, also some additional hydroelectric capacity too. Second, we should be increasing the share of renewable electricity generation to achieve New Zealand's 90 percent target by 2025. In fact, I think we can do better than that. Third, we think that we should make transport an early target for emissions reductions, requiring more use of rail for freight and urban passenger travel, reducing the number and use of polluting vehicles by encouraging fully electric vehicles, and providing better public transport.
On the emissions trading scheme, New Zealand First has many reservations. While an increase in forestry will create a huge carbon bank that we can use as an offset to emissions, those emissions must also be reduced strongly. So some form of internal carbon pricing to allow that to happen will be inevitable, but that does not mean that we need to maintain an emissions trading scheme for foreign purchasers of carbon credits. Instead, responsible action by the farming community must go hand-in-hand with Government regulation.
We in New Zealand First would therefore repeal the emissions trading scheme and replace it with a scheme to operate internally. We would also legislate for a new parliamentary commission for climate change to be established as an Office of Parliament, led by a commissioner for climate change and supported by independent expert assistant commissioners. They would be legally responsible for reporting against our climate change targets, working with the Government to set a 3-year carbon budget designed to reach those commitments, and assisting in developing the strategies, the plans, the legislation, and the regulation to achieve the emissions performance we seek.
Finally, I want to repeat that New Zealand First is committed to working with other parties and everyone in the community—business, individuals; everybody—to achieve those targets. We know it is a discussion. We want to take part in it, and we have, as I have said, something to add to that discussion too.
DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): It is a pleasure to participate in this special debate on an issue that concerns so many people so deeply. I would like to commend those members of the House, particularly Kennedy Graham, who has worked assiduously to bring about a report and cooperation on an issue that is so important to him. Many members toil away for a long period of time without advancing any issues they care about at all. Kennedy Graham is far from being one of those for this particular achievement alone.
The report that we are asked to debate and comment on gives us, effectively, a series of choices as a country, depending on our level of ambition for reducing carbon emissions, and asks how much of our current and future lifestyle we are prepared to give up in light of potential technological advances that may make it easier to eat our cake and have it too. I would make the argument that we should first focus on doing those things that we should do because they make sense anyway. Let me just give you half a dozen examples of things that the Government of New Zealand and this Parliament could do now that would reduce New Zealand's emissions and have other benefits that would make New Zealand a better place.
The first example I will share with you is making it easier for people to share rides. At present in New Zealand, it is legal to share a ride with another person unless you charge them money. As soon as you charge somebody money to share a ride, you have to face $1,500 of regulatory costs—soon to be only $600, the Minister tells me—and that is prohibitive for people who want to get into the business of having more than one person in a vehicle. This is one of those examples where it makes sense to do it anyway. Because if you drive down the Southern Motorway at 7.30 a.m. on a weekday, and probably soon on a weekend, and you count the cars opposite you, which are almost stationary, you will find that every fifth one, if you are lucky, has more than one occupant.
If we could just get a small increase in the number of people sharing rides, then we could dramatically increase the vehicle occupancy rate, we would reduce congestion, and also we would reduce the carbon intensity of travel. So I would put it to the House that one of the most urgent things that we should be doing is making it as easy as getting a driver's licence to become an Uber driver or a Chariot driver or a Lyft driver, and we should have thousands of students all over New Zealand who, if they are still driving to university, are making money and picking up a few people on the way. That is not going to solve the whole problem, but it is something that could be done very easily. It would barely even require legislation.
Something more ambitious that we should do anyway that would also have major benefits for reducing New Zealand's emissions, from transport at least, is we must start pricing road use in an accurate way. One of the things about being a member of Parliament is that you have to catch an awful lot of flights, and I marvel at the fact that almost every time I get on a plane the number of passengers is exactly the same as the number of seats on the plane—incredible; how do they do it? When there are times of great demand, such as Monday morning—
Hon Judith Collins: Not if it's United.
DAVID SEYMOUR: Ha, ha! I have to say the Minister of Energy and Resources just said "Not if it's United.", which is true. But I just want to make the point that they are able to coordinate supply and demand and reduce overcrowding by varying the price according to the time of day and the time of the week. On our roadwork networks, we have the same price to drive at any time, and so you have empty roads for half the day and chaos for the rest of the day. We must follow Singapore, we must follow Stockholm, we must follow London and actually look to price the use of roads according to the level of congestion at that particular time.
That is something that would address one of the most urgent problems we have in New Zealand, particularly in Auckland and now in Wellington, of congestion, but it would also significantly reduce the amount of idling and the amount of emissions that we have. It would encourage people to use other forms of transport. At the moment, if you are sitting on a bus, good on you; but if you are behind 50 vehicles that are paying the same road-user charge as you are, then you are getting ripped off.
Another thing that we could do is to address our agricultural emissions. Again, a very simple thing that New Zealand could do if it wanted to reduce its emissions—not something that would change the whole game, but these things add up; it is something that we could do that would actually be beneficial anyway—is get rid of the State ownership of Landcorp. It is extraordinary that in 2017 the taxpayer of New Zealand is supplying cheap capital to people who want to do dairy conversions. If we are worried that our dairy intensity has become too great, then perhaps one of the things we should consider is to stop subsidising it with taxpayer money.
I would actually go one further and, as I suggested at the beginning of last year, I would use some of the proceeds of that sale to pay off Government debt, and I would use the rest to set up a special grant-making trust to fund people who wish to create wildlife sanctuaries, fencing out the pests that predate on our native species and planting more native trees, which also act as a carbon sink. So that is up to three things we could do that would be relatively easy.
But here is a fourth—it is a little bit harder, but it is still the right thing to do. After 16 years of the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act, the jury should be in. Waving normal competition law to create one giant cooperative has not delivered anything like what was promised in the days of heady rhetoric at the beginning of this millennium. We were promised that we would have a global marketing champion and giant that would move us up the value chain and make New Zealand farmers rich. Well, New Zealand farmers have done pretty well, mainly because they have worked so hard, but we have hardly created a Network of Early-Career Sustainable Scientists and Engineers of the South Pacific. If anything, we have mainly managed to boil a huge amount of water, using a huge amount of coal and gas, and send a huge amount of powder to the huge market that is China. I do not think that is value-add. I think what we need in New Zealand is to look at the firms that are doing value-add in dairy of smaller volumes of greater value, such as Open Country Dairy, such as Synlait, and so on.
The other thing that we could do is create a regulatory environment that is more conducive to technology. I will just give you this one simple example: a current energy bill is in danger of applying the regulations, normally applied to electricity distributors, to anyone in New Zealand who wants to charge electric vehicles. So it makes sense to be regulatory—to be responsible in regulation, anyway—but it is another thing that we should be doing to have a forward-looking regulatory regime that makes it possible for us to uptake new technology, and ride-sharing is an example of that. There are examples of that in financial technology and there are examples of that around charging networks for electric vehicles.
I am not going to engage in the level of ambition and how much we should be prepared to chop our nose off to spite our face and how much cost we should be prepared to take to fight climate change—that debate has been well-covered by other people—but what I would say is that as a party, ACT is in favour of addressing those issues that are costless to do, may have other benefits anyway, and cumulatively, added together, will significantly reduce our emissions and achieve the goals that people like Kennedy Graham would like New Zealand to achieve. Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you for this wonderful debate.
Aupito WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): There are a lot of people to be acknowledged who helped to bring this report here, including the sponsors, but I do want to single out two people. I want to thank Dr Kennedy Graham. As others have said, I think you have been a driving force in bringing this together, but I also want to thank you in particular because you have taken every opportunity with our international guests to share with them what is happening around the Pacific region, and I really appreciate that because that is a key component in the work that we have got to do in addressing climate change here in New Zealand. I do want to acknowledge the Minister for Climate Change Issues, Paula Bennett, for being willing to have this debate, because I think that if she was not willing, we would not be here talking in this manner—bipartisan or multipartisan—addressing an issue that I believe is one of the defining issues of our lifetime. It is not going to go away; it is going to get worse. It is real.
I have been told that most of us will not be able to leave Wellington tonight. The airport is closed down due to fog, and it is likely that myself and others will leave tomorrow. Last year when I visited Kiribati on a climate change mission, I was stranded because there was fog above the airport. It was flooded on the runway, and for 4 days we were stranded there. The Pacific is somewhere that we need to look in order to anticipate what is coming our way. You see, unlike the Pacific, we are fortunate that we have this land mass and we have mountains. There are Pacific Island countries that will be underwater, and the science shows this. Dr Nunn is well-known in the Pacific region. He is a professor of geography and has studied the region in the last 25 years, and has said that by 2070 to 2100, islands such as Tokelau, Tuvalu, Kiribati, and the Marshall Islands will be underwater.
I want people to just think about that, because this report is a report based on what the whole world has agreed upon in terms of the Paris Agreement. This report gives us some scenarios of what this country ought to do. I have heard some of the members talk about things that individually we can do—and, yes, there are things that we can do—but the reality is that this issue, to address it meaningfully, requires political will at the highest leadership level. At the highest leadership level, it requires present and future Governments to act on it.
I feel a sense of urgency about it, because this report highlights that if we continue doing what we have always done merrily, merrily down the road, we will be off track. We will be off track. It suggests some things that we can do now in order to reduce our emissions, and it requires us signalling right now what type of action we will take in order to transition from fossil fuels, from the use of oil, from the use of coal, from polluting our environment, to renewable energy. It requires us transitioning now from the way that we currently use our land for agriculture to more forestation of our land and the use of new technology and being more innovative. It requires us moving from gas-polluting vehicles to electric vehicles. That requires leadership.
If we want to know what will come our way in terms of hotter, wetter, drier climates, look to the Pacific, because it is experiencing climate change right now. One of the leadership roles that I would ask this Government and future Governments to entertain and to act upon is that we need to develop a climate change plan not just for New Zealand but also for the Pacific region. Nobody else is talking about it, but right now in the Pacific we have islands outside of Tuvalu and islands that are part of Kiribati that are under water. Their people are migrating and putting a lot of pressure on those small Island States. What will we do in 2070 when 12,000 people from Tuvalu are at our doorstep, when 112,000 from Kiribati are at our doorstep? If we cannot fix our problems, how can we help those people?
JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): This is it. Now is the time. Let this be the day that the New Zealand Parliament not only came together to debate a report that was commissioned by a cross-party parliamentary group, which showed us the different pathways that we could take to make New Zealand truly net zero carbon to respond to climate change, but let this be the day that we really start to work together to solve the problems that are in front of us, because it is only by working together that we can solve a problem of this scale.
Climate change, we know—and we have known for many decades—is going to result in increased floods, increased storms, more powerful storms, and more droughts. This is already affecting people around the globe and here in New Zealand this very day. If we do nothing, it will get worse, but the great news is that by taking action to reduce carbon pollution, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, not only will we protect the climate but we will actually have an opportunity to make our lives better in many different ways.
It is not too late to do things differently, and this report in particular shows us clear pathways through different areas, whether it is transport, agriculture, buildings, industrial energy use—all of these different pathways added together can provide the road that we will take to reduce our carbon emissions and to have a better future.
Electrifying our transport will clean up our air from diesel particulates and will reduce traffic noise in our towns and cities. Investing in trains and light rail and ferries and coastal shipping and rail freight—all of that will make it easier for people and goods to move around our country. It will make our towns and cities more hospitable places to live. It will result in better health for our children if they are able to walk and cycle to school. So there are all these opportunities to improve our lives in ways that will also protect our climate. But we will not be able to take those pathways and implement those solutions if we continue to defer action.
One of the key findings of this report is that, to the extent that it is feasible to delay further, costs will only increase. We all know this. I mean, right now in Auckland, in my apartment, I have got a leak in the skylight. Mr Speaker, if you had a leak in your roof, you would know that the longer you wait to repair it, the more difficult and costly the damage will be. That is the situation we are in now. We know that the economy, as it is, is not serving us. It is resulting in increasing inequality, and it will result in catastrophic climate change. The sooner we take action to transition, the easier and more affordable it will be and the sooner we will get all of the benefits of that investment in warm, dry homes, in sustainable people-oriented transport, and in farming that is high value and low cost in its impact on the environment. It will not only clean up our rivers and protect our climate but also preserve the soil. It will be better for farmers than this endless boom and bust of the commodity cycle that we are currently on.
Most importantly, everyone in New Zealand knows it is the right thing to do. I am confident that people want to do the right thing. They want to be part of something that makes the world a better place and makes their community a better place. New Zealanders get out there and chip in when there is a collective problem. I have no doubt that many New Zealanders will be out there in places that are experiencing severe flooding. In the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquake, we saw an outpouring of support of people who were willing to get out there, roll up their sleeves, and pitch in to help repair the damage. That is what we need now more than ever.
I am going to finish with a quote from Naomi Klein from the book This Changes Everything: Capitalism Vs. The Climate: "[Climate change] is a civilizational wake-up call. A powerful message—spoken in the language of fires, floods, droughts, and extinctions—telling us that we need an entirely new economic model and a new way of sharing this planet." I have no doubt that the people of New Zealand want to be part of the solution. What we need to do now is put aside our political differences and show that leadership, because the role of Government is to protect and empower our people and our planet.
TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): I believe I am the second-to-last speaker on this debate. What we have heard is the voice of consensus. What we have heard is an opportunity. I do just want to make a comment about the contribution by Mr Seymour: every family has one. I want to say, to reiterate what my colleague Denis O'Rourke said—and we are ably led in this attitude by Kennedy Graham—that New Zealand First will stay at the table. We need to say that the fastest way to shut down conversation is to call each other names. That is the fastest way to stop this progressing, so we need to be respectful. Regardless of the fact that that was very clever use of a debate to bring in Uber, there is some merit to continuing the conversation with Mr Seymour and others around road-user charges.
There is always merit in a conversation, but I would also say that one of the things that William Sio's contribution highlighted was—and he is quite right—when there was a cyclone that went through Tuvalu last year, they lost an island. It was there in the morning and by the next day it was not there any more. Mr Seymour, when William Sio said that he had been stranded on Kiribati, said: "Not a bad place to be stranded." I think, Kennedy, what GLOBE-NZ needs to do then is to take some members of this Parliament to some of these Pacific islands and see that it is a terrible place to be stranded, and that we must do more to help our Pacific neighbours in what is a highly polluted and highly crowded environment. We obviously need to do more work there on educating some of our own.
I am pleased that David Parker also endorsed the Royal Society of New Zealand dinners. This is a glass half-full day. We have a massive opportunity and, through our Crown research institutes, our universities, and some of the private research providers, we have some amazing science here in New Zealand, which not enough people know about. Again, we need to do a better job of making sure that the New Zealand public knows we have the solutions, we have the smarts, and, as has already been mentioned by Denis O'Rourke, we have the adaptability. And our farmers have the adaptability—let us stop calling them names. Let us recognise how resilient they are. In the 1980s and 1990s, look what they did. They were bashed by what happened there, but look how they came back. We can transition this again, but we need to stop calling each other names and we need to work with it.
I am hoping that the Minister for Climate Change Issues has the last call on this debate. I am going to say this: next steps need a budget. Next steps need a budget. This is Parliament's information; it is not a Government's information. It belongs to the people of New Zealand, and so do the next steps. It would be wonderful to continue conversations, rather than having to go for charity, and while we certainly appreciate those organisations that gave us funds from outside Parliament, Parliament needs a budget to move forward. So that is a conversation that I think we need to have. See how we can work together. We have got an election coming, so maybe it is "hands off" for now, and fair enough.
But going forward, if we all stay at the table, stop calling each other names, stay in the conversation even when we get slightly crabby—and Kennedy is very good at bringing us back and saying how he understands our perspective, but think about this—then perhaps we can talk about a budget so that we can perform next steps. Where do we agree? Let us do a Venn diagram of where we are at. Let us deal with the issues that we all agree on and the things we believe we can take the steps on first of all, and let us go forward. We have got a moment here. Let us not lose that moment. Kia ora.
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Climate Change Issues): Those few people who are watching or listening in may think they have entered an alternate universe. Here on a Thursday afternoon in Parliament we are having a debate where we all kind of agree with each other on a cross-party piece of work. I just want to say that I fully endorse and support the cross-party nature of GLOBE-NZ and, certainly, the introduction of this Vivid Economics report on climate change. But, yes, there must be the odd person out there who is checking the dial on their radio and wondering what is going on.
Grant Robertson, you will be thrilled to know that I am the last speaker in this debate and Parliament does get to rise straight after. If you want to seek leave so I can do an extra hour or something, you know, feel free. I am sure I could channel Hekia Parata in her last day as a Minister and get a bit more in.
I joke, but not on the subject of climate change, actually. I like the fact that we have got a cross-party piece of work. I admire and respect the work that Vivid has done. As a consequence of that, I think that even as a Minister in the Government, it can help feed into the work that we are doing. I certainly acknowledge it as a piece of work that is owned by Parliament and is ours, and is owned by Vivid. But you cannot blame me for wanting to read it and take some bits out of it and think about how that kind of shapes the work that I am doing as a Minister.
I have been listening to this debate, and I thank everyone for their contributions and their insightfulness. There are a few things that interest me. Julie Anne Genter was just talking about getting on with it, and now is kind of the moment, and a few others have picked up on that theme.
Tim Groser, when he was the Minister for Climate Change Issues, used to say: "I think I have got it about right because my correspondence is 50 percent you're going too far and 50 percent you're not going far enough." I can tell you that I no longer—well, I should not say "no longer". It is now rare for me to receive correspondence from people telling me that climate change is not real and that we are barking mad. I reckon I sense it in the speeches that I give. I sense it in the audiences I am with. Just last week, I think it was, or the adjournment week, I gave two speeches to large audiences of farmers. I always talk climate change. One was with my colleague Ian McKelvie. I can tell you that they do not now debate whether it is real or not.
We might debate the different aspects of what is impacting the most, but, actually, New Zealand has moved on. Our own caucus has moved on, to be quite blunt with you. We have a number of members who have been here in the last 6 years who probably think differently from some who were here 20 years ago, and I think that is healthy. It is a healthy sign for New Zealand in terms of a topic, a subject, that is as important as this.
I argue to people that we are already changing, so do not freak out. The climate is changing, but so are we as New Zealanders as to how we live and what we do. What we need is the mapped-out plan for what those changes are going forward.
The biggest call that I get from businesses—they have all got opinions, but what they say to me is: "Give us the plan and give us some certainty.", so that they can make some decisions within that. Quite a lot have been approaching me of late and saying that they want to invest literally hundreds of millions of dollars in new plant and different ways of doing things. What they need from Parliament is some certainty on some ground rules around the emissions trading scheme (ETS), and I think we have got some challenges there as a Parliament, as to whether or not we can all agree that it is going to be a foundation.
It is entirely up to other parties as to where they move the levers within it, but if we want businesses to be investing literally hundreds of millions of dollars into cleaner plants that are better for the environment, they need certainty, not just in the next 5 years but, actually, as we know, for at least the next 10 or 15 years. In terms of making that kind of an investment, their boards are not deciding in the next 6 months and building 6 months later—those are years-long kinds of investments. I think that that is a challenge for us as to how we address that.
I have said many times that we have got a whole lot of pieces of work that are going on at the moment. The one that is probably coming up for us quite quickly is phase two of the ETS. We have done the consultation phase, and officials are currently working on their advice to me. I honestly do not know what that is, because it is their job to go through all of the technical nature of it, to work their way through it. But I have to say it will be tackling some big issues. Today in question time in the House I touched on the cap, so that is on the table for discussion.
There is the big question around allocation for businesses after 2020. Certainly, a lot of them are asking really big questions around that. There are also questions around units and auctioning and what that means. So these are really significant and big subjects that we have to work our way through, and fairly soon. As I say, I am not sure—I think that is one that we need to make sure we are looking at in the right space and time.
In the other work that is going on, I reckon there are some other areas that we can agree on. The one that is pretty obvious and that stands out in the Vivid report is planting more trees and talking about land use. We can have the big arguments about land use, and I am sure we will, and we should continue to. They are not unhealthy. They are not unhealthy for our farming sector. They are not unhealthy for our foresters. They are not unhealthy for us as a country.
We make no bones about it—we support farmers and how they do it, and, actually there is no point in cutting them off at the knees here in New Zealand. The world still needs what they produce, and there are more inefficient farmers in other parts of the world who would pick up the slack and the world would be worse off, from an emissions profile point of view. So we should be backing our New Zealand farmers and looking more, I think, at how we get more consistency of sustainable and efficient farming across the agricultural sector, because there are still pockets that could pick up and take some better practice.
But when it comes to what those next steps are and how we map out that longer-term plan—yes, I have got a focus on 2030. You would expect me to. Without actually looking at that and getting that right, then we have got huge expenses. But looking forward to 2050 is something that I think this Parliament should continue to tackle.
Happy Easter everyone, and take care out there on the roads.
The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.
The House adjourned at 4.43 p.m.

Parliament Buildings’ street address

Visitor Centre contact details

Special Debate — GLOBE-NZ—Report

Parliament Buildings’ street address

Visitor Centre contact details

Listen

Listen

Special Debate — GLOBE-NZ—Report