The time is now... but is it enough?

So, after much anticipation, Ināia tonu nei – the time is now, the formal advice to Government on climate action in Aotearoa from He Pou a Rangi: the Climate Change Commission dropped last week. There has been a host of in-depth coverage and analysis following the launch, including pieces in Newsroom, Stuff, The Spinoff, the New Zealand Herald and Radio New Zealand. For me, this coverage, and the public kōrero that comes with it, is as important as the advice itself. Creating awareness around the extent of the challenge we face, putting real numbers and targets to the kinds of change and interventions that are needed, is critical to enabling the action that needs to follow. By having a blueprint and demonstration pathway, we can better understand - and importantly, engage in more informed debate about - the change ahead. Providing this kind of starting point was one of the motivations and driving forces behind the modelling work undertaken for Te Tāruke-ā-Tāwhiri: Auckland's Climate Plan and it is great to now have this at the national level.

I expect (hope) the climate kōrero around the Commission's advice will continue on through to and beyond the Emissions Reduction Plans the Government now has to prepare by the end of this year. This will no doubt continue to include (as there has already been) discussion on the degree to which the advice goes far enough to both prepare us for the challenge ahead, and to ensure we do our fair share. For me, there are two key images from the advice that will (should) be key to that debate.

The first image (Figure 11.2) sets out the range of policy instruments required to address the variety of market failures in our economy that have lead to the climate crisis we face.

Whilst its intention is to highlight the complexities and inter-linkages of the changes required, for me it screams of the inadequacy of our existing economic system. If we need so many bandages to fix the system, then maybe it is time to rebuild the system from scratch. As highlighted in Te Tāruke-ā-Tāwhiri, we need to move to an economy that is more regenerative, that is fairer and more distributive, that better recognises the finite nature of the natural resources that we are reliant on. That the key sectors identified in the table only includes natural systems that we exploit for our gain underscores the imbalance that currently exists. That we need so many different interventions highlights and reiterates how climate change has not been, and still fails to be, a central consideration to some of the most critical systems that we are reliant on - energy, transport, urban form.

The second image, Figure 9.4, is intended to show how Aotearoa will contribute to the global push to keep temperature rises to 1.5°C through a 55% reduction in our carbon dioxide emissions by 2030. What this shows however is that almost two-thirds of this reduction will come in the form of removals by forests.

Our climate response cannot simply be to decarbonise our status quo and then use offsets and carbon removals to plug the gap. In comparison to the Commissions draft advice, it was heartening to see that the final advice has moved to some degree on this. For example, it has recognised that reducing transport emissions isn't simply about electrifying our vehicle fleet, but requires us to tackle issues of housing, transport and urban form in a much more integrated way. However, as Figure 11.2 shows, we need to go much further than this, and radically rethink and overhaul our underpinning systems, how we manage the critical systems that we need as a society to thrive in a more holistic, integrated and ecologically-centred way.

Ināia tonu nei is an important document. It provides a focus point for much-needed debate and discussion. I hope though that this discussion doesn't just focus on an accounting level review of the numbers, but involves a really challenging kōrero about the adequacy of our systems for the very different future that we face.