Climate action cannot be postponed any longer. Last week the government of New Zealand recognised the urgency of the climate crisis and declared a climate change emergency, reports The Guardian. In doing so, New Zealand joins 32 other nations who have formally acknowledged the climate crisis.
The government also announced that the public sector will become carbon neutral by 2025: government bodies will be required to measure, report and offset their carbon emissions. The proposed measures for the public sector include phasing out coal-fired boilers in public buildings, and buying only electric or hybrid vehicles.
In November of 2019 the New Zealand parliament passed landmark legislation, the Zero Carbon Act, committing the country to reduce net greenhouse gas emission to zero by 2050. The Act contributes to global climate action efforts under the Paris Agreement and will allow New Zealand to prepare for and adapt to climate change. It also established an independent Climate Change Commission to provide expert advice and monitor progress towards long-term goals.
But New Zealand has “one of the worst climate records of industrialised nations”, points out professor Robert McLachlan in The Conversation. Annex 1 parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change include 43 industrialised countries plus those with economies in transition. Twelve of them have actually increased their net emissions from 1990 to 2018, and New Zealand is the second one in terms of growth in emissions. McLachlan believes current short-term policies are not ambitious enough to reach the target of net zero emissions by 2050. Next February a new document by the Climate Change Commission is expected to review New Zealand’s Nationally Determined Contribution and propose new emissions budgets.
The parties in the opposition describe the declaration as a hollow gesture, without a proper plan to deal with the emergency. New Zealand’s current approach to climate policy has been described as that of a “fast follower”. And while Prime Minister Jacinda Arden has recognised the declaration is symbolic, with the declaration as a step in the right direction, now the nation has instruments in place to take action and cut emissions. Climate change is an emergency, but, as some have called it, a “long emergency”; action will have to be sustained for years and decades. Both leaders and followers in climate governance have to rethink our societies and economies.
