The recent general election has resulted in sweeping changes in climate policy in New Zealand, but the commitments to the Zero Carbon Act, to meeting the climate budgets, and meeting our Paris Agreement target, remain. When the article below was published in short form in the newspaper, the editor chose the headline “The good news on climate change – and the rest“. This led to some debate online. Was it really good news? Or could the title equally well have been “The bad news”? I thought that for an international audience “New Zealand votes for a higher carbon tax” would have been a good lead.

Regardless of that, here is the full article from the November 2023 issue of Policy Quarterly.