Tag: New Zealand

New Zealand’s Strategic Foreign Policy Assessment

by Heidi O’Callahan

A graphic from the previous Assessment, conducted in 2023 under the previous government.

[The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade is undertaking its triennial Strategic Foreign Policy Assessment. The Ministry writes: “The Assessment will examine the international context New Zealand will navigate in the decade to 2036, and what this means for us. The Assessment will consider the most important changes and drivers we see happening in the world, what they mean for New Zealand, what those changes mean for our relationships, and what they mean for our region — the Pacific and the Indo-Pacific.” Heidi O’Callahan’s submission is below. She would love to read other people’s submissions that tackle other (climate-exacerbated) topics, like overfishing, war, peacekeeping, humane treatment of refugees, terrorism, the scam economies and cyber security.

Submissions can be made at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/J7J8P9V. Submissions close at 5pm on 24 December 2025.]


What are the big international issues you think New Zealand will have to navigate over the next 10 years, and what are the opportunities you think New Zealand can pursue?


The big international problems we must navigate are biodiversity loss and climate change,
as well as the poverty, inequity, migration, societal breakdown and geopolitical instability
exacerbated by these problems. To navigate these issues successfully requires accepting
the root cause: an unsustainable economic paradigm of exploitation centred on the pursuit of
economic growth.


Above all, our economy needs to operate within planetary limits; it must become more
circular, socially-positive, and ecologically regenerative. Our best opportunities for
international trade lie in low-carbon, high-value intellectual innovation. The current industries
of bulk commodities (timber, milk products, meat, etc) and international tourism must be
scaled back significantly. The scale of these industries cannot be justified on a climate basis,
and their pollution and transport impacts are directly damaging to New Zealanders’ health,
accessibility and freedoms.


What do you consider New Zealand’s foreign policy needs to do to protect and advance our interests in the world over the next 10 years?


Our government needs to act domestically to protect and advance our interests, if our
foreign policy is to have a chance of helping us on the international front. We are currently
witnessing the opposite; the government is introducing policy and legislation that is directly
undermining our safety and wellbeing. This is happening across all spheres: Te Tiriti,
transport, agriculture, education, health, climate, housing and social wellbeing are examples.
In climate alone, the government has 1) unethically scrapped policies designed to reduce
emissions, 2) reduced the climate targets on the basis of no evidence, 3) decided against
bringing agriculture into the ETS and 4) indicated they will baulk at paying the bill for
international credits to cover emissions that such a climate-ignorant set of actions creates
(despite buying credits being the centrepiece of the National Party’s otherwise non-existent
climate policy.)


MFAT cannot operate with any integrity on the international stage alongside such appalling
government backsliding. So, while New Zealand’s foreign policy needs to support
international climate regulations and rules that force wealthier countries like us to reduce
emissions rapidly and pay for our past damage, it is hard for MFAT staff to be taken seriously
when representing a hypocritical government.


Nor will MFAT succeed at advancing our economic interests or pursuing opportunities; the
government’s climate denial will exclude us from markets and keep us out of key
international decision-making.


It’s not just in climate we are becoming a laughing stock. The GPS on Transport attracted
derision and ridicule from international experts. The UN Committee for the Elimination of
Racial Discrimination highlighted how quickly New Zealand is going backwards under this
racist government.


New Zealand’s foreign policy should advance real climate justice, climate action, the
commitment to international agreements on improving transport safety, reducing racial,
gender and age discrimination, the pursuit of improving the wellbeing of people in all
countries (especially indigenous people, and the educational and health opportunities for
girls and women), the promotion of sustainable practices and ecological regeneration, and
above all, the dismantling of the economic paradigm that has led to the destruction of water,
soil, air, natural and human resources.


But to pursue advancing these issues, diplomats should be able to draw on robust examples
of domestic New Zealand practices, with truth and integrity. Currently, they cannot.


For you, your community, organisation or business: What matters most in the world beyond New Zealand? What places and international relationships matter most? What do you think are New Zealand’s greatest strengths and weaknesses in our international engagement?


We should pursue strong and respectful relationships with our Pacific neighbours.
One important matter “in the world beyond New Zealand” is reducing hypermobility. The
majority of people in the world have never set foot in an aeroplane. Yet a small minority
continue to fly, with enormous climate impact, and we are all subsidising them to do so.
Flying is one of the most inequitable and destructive activities humans can indulge in. Our
foreign policy should seek international mechanisms and agreements to achieve substantial
reductions in aviation. As a country with apparently much to lose (but also much to gain in
other ways) from reducing international aviation, New Zealand is actually in a strong position
to lead this international work, through demonstration of substantial systemic change. New
Zealand needs to shrink our international tourism industry, and take steps to prevent our
wealthy people from travelling so much. Our government must stop promoting New Zealand
as a destination, stop allowing airport expansions, introduce taxes to prevent recreational
and other avoidable flights, and support the transition to sustainable industries, including
sustainable bike-, rail-, and coach-based domestic tourism.


The international relationships that matter most are in implementing and honouring the
various UN conventions and agreements – on traffic safety, on climate, on wellbeing and
health, etc. It seems, currently, that this government is rejecting the authority of the UN,
willingly forgetting what atrocities led to the creation of the UN in the first place!


Currently, the most important international relationships my community has is with experts
from other countries to help us try to make gains in evidence-based transport, agricultural,
energy and climate policies for New Zealand. Currently, much community effort is being
spent trying to undo or mitigate aggressive and regressive government actions that have no
basis in evidence or accepted practices. It is very sad to see this waste of human toil and
effort, which could be being used to build a better New Zealand.


Also important are the relationships with international experts on democracy. New Zealand’s
poor democratic practices are stifling our progress. Deliberation and informed
decision-making are the basis of good democracy. New Zealand will not thrive and we will
not make the most of opportunities while most decisions are being made on the basis of
misinformed opinions, corporate lobbying, misguided pursuits of economic growth, and
populism.


New Zealand’s foreign policy should promote the international development of a body of
knowledge about modern democracy. Such an international resource would be useful for all
kinds of decision-making, and could help dispel the damaging myth that “one person one
vote” is a sufficient basis for democracy.


New Zealand’s greatest strength in our international engagement is the goodwill built up over
many decades by good diplomacy and leadership. While there has been a low bar for what a
“good” country should do to improve the welfare of poorer countries and to pursue
development goals, at least New Zealand often tried to be one of the more enlightened
OECD countries. Internationally, the standard must improve. Unfortunately, New Zealand is
not stepping up. The goodwill is evaporating rapidly.


Our biggest weakness in international relationships is the lack of integrity in our domestic
policies.


Do you have any other thoughts on the international context you would like the team to consider?


How the climate changes depends on emissions right now and over the next few years. Net
zero by 2050 is necessary but by then it will be largely irrelevant; the important point is the
emissions trajectory to get there. Bureaucrats and leaders believe they face difficult
decisions currently and rarely prioritise emissions reductions. Yet the different climate
pathways will determine the options in front of future decision-makers, who will have fewer
resources to be able to draw upon, will be functioning in more urgent circumstances, and are
likely to be working within weaker institutions.


When this is fully understood, it is clear that decision-making is unlikely to get any easier!
We must stick to ethical action that will help decision-makers in the future. We must invest to
pursue rapid and significant emissions reductions, and rapidly transform our systems so they
are low carbon. We must acknowledge that the true social cost of carbon is orders of
magnitude higher than what our ETS scheme uses; much larger than what Europe is using.
We must be responsible international neighbours, and ensure poor countries don’t have to
make decisions between climate action and social or economic health.


None of this can be delayed while climate deniers have their turn at power plays in politics.
Quality foreign policy, in the absence of quality domestic policy, is akin to “polishing a turd”.

Central Otago study maps lifestyle, issues and concerns

By Robert McLachlan

Today James Renwick, James Higham and myself have released the first of three reports, making available key findings about Central Otago residents’ views on a number of topics.

The research, conducted late last year, covers five topics: Central Otago lifestyle, climate change, infrastructure and growth, tourism, and air travel and airports. Respondents chosen at random from right throughout the Queenstown Lakes and Central Otago districts were asked over 70 questions, and were also given the opportunity to comment openly on all topics.

The survey revealed a strongly unified population sharing many values, beliefs and concerns. 89% of respondents lived in or visited the region for its ‘lifestyle’; other natural factors, such as climate and landscape, also figured extremely highly. Other factors, such as ease of travel and work opportunities, were regarded as less important. There was a high level of concern about climate change and environmental sustainability in the region, and strong support for a greater focus on the value of visitors rather than the volume.

63% of respondents were opposed to the proposed Central Otago Airport (and 51%, strongly opposed) compared to 22% in favour. This level of opposition was found right across the Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes districts, in contrast to the statement from Christchurch Airport’s Michael Singleton that “the community is equally divided between supporters, opponents, and the undecided.”

The proposal to build an international airport at Tarras is not just a local issue as it is significant for New Zealand as a whole. It’s a national issue that can only be resolved by a national plan for aviation emissions that meets our international agreements.

Professor James Higham of Griffith University and the University of Otago commented that there were strong themes running through the responses. “There is no doubt that people choose to live in Central Otago for the same reasons that tourists want to visit. It is a superbly beautiful, unspoilt and tranquil place. It’s clear from our research that sustainability is now a very high priority for the people of Central Otago, and they also very clearly understand the impact of tourism that the region benefits from. This study shows that they want better tourism with less impact, rather than more tourists.”

Professor James Renwick of Victoria University of Wellington said that the impacts of climate change are clearly on Central Otago residents’ radar, which is consistent with research conducted elsewhere. “People are conscious that we have to do everything we can to get New Zealand to net-zero, and that we all have to play our part. We’re seeing people do that in numerous ways including solar energy, reducing waste to landfill and reducing unnecessary travel. Aviation can be a significant portion of people’s footprints – especially where flights are medium to long haul.”

The second report, due out next month, will present an analysis of the extensive and detailed written responses. A third report, scheduled for April 2024 will represent the results of bivariate analyses to uncover the relationships between responses to different questions.

The report can be downloaded at https://informedleaders.com/central-otago-study/.

We (still) need to talk about cars

By Robert McLachlan

To address climate change, we need to phase out the burning of fossil fuels. The largest share of fossil fuels is burnt in cars and trucks. So it seems clear that fossil-fuelled vehicles need to stop being designed, made, imported, and driven. But anyone who has visited a road or seen a car ad recently knows that that isn’t happening, or, if it is, it’s happening so imperceptibly slowly as to hardly make a difference.

In New Zealand the situation is particularly acute, as we are now very, very far down the path towards a system dominated by urban sprawl and private cars, with little regulation of either. Road transport emissions doubled between 1990 and 2018. In the US they rose 30% in the same period, and in the UK, just 6%, which campaigners still point out is woefully insufficient.

Soon we will start to take steps to turn this ship around. It may or may not be quick, it may or not be easy. But it’s probably not going to be both quick and easy. As plans start to crystallise, there is certain to be a lot of back-and-forth between different factions.

Let’s take a look at the protagonists.

In the green corner: the climate advocates.

There are hundreds of advocacy groups, but a good example is 1.5 Project, led by Paul Winton. He points out that to fulfil our obligations under the Paris Agreement, we need to cut emissions 60% by 2030. Many sectors (such as the dairy industry, which creates huge emissions burning coal and gas to dry milk into milk powder) already have transition plans in place, and, in any event, are valuable and productive industries. So he concludes that road transport has to be virtually emission-free by 2030.

His and similar voices are being heard. For example, Auckland and Wellington councils have set made climate goals that require road transport emissions to at least halve by 2030. But targets like this are very, very difficult to achieve. They would mean essentially no new fossil-fuels vehicles entering the fleet, starting immediately. Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands are being imported every year, and people are buying them.

Passing to the red corner: the Labour government

The Government has a plan already prepared: the Clean Car Standard. It was developed and widely discussed in 2019 and taken into the 2020 election. It’s a fuel efficiency standard for new (or newly imported) vehicles, something that almost all developed countries have had for years, and that New Zealand would have had too in 2009, had not the incoming government of John Key blocked it. (You can read the official reasons in the cabinet papers; even in 2009 they must have seemed somewhat flimsy, and of course they have not stood the test of time.)

In the Standard as originally designed, the average fuel efficiency of all vehicles (of each importer) must meet a certain target that gets progressively more stringent. This was set at 161 gCO2/km in 2022, falling to 105 gCO2/km by 2025. The Standard was predicted to cut emissions  by 2 million tonnes of CO2 a year (about 13% of road transport emissions) by 2030, for a net savings of $2.4 billion.

Growth, 1990–2018Per person, 1990Per person, 2018Per vehicle4Targets
USA+30%4.8 tCO24.8 tCO2300 gCO2/km135 gCO2/km 20261
UK+6%1.94 tCO21.78 tCO2220 gCO2/km81 gCO2/km 20252
NZ+99%2.19 tCO23.06 tCO2330 gCO2/km105 gCO2/km 20253
Road transport emissions compared. 1For cars and light trucks (i.e. utes) combined; Obama target was 117g. 2EU target for cars only. Target 125g for light trucks. 3Proposed in the Clean Car Standard for cars and light trucks. Current new light vehicles average 180 gCO2/km. 4For the entire current fleet including heavy trucks.
From the Clean Car Plan proposal. I’ve tried to indicate the predicted 2 million tonnes savings by 2030 under the plan. Actually, I think the ‘BAU’ (Business As Usual, a terrible term) projection is pretty optimistic given our past and current behaviour.

OK, 13% savings, that’s a bit less than we need, but, wait a minute, there’s another player to consider….

In the blue corner: the car industry

This is a massive industry. Something like $6 billion of new cars are sold every year, in part thanks to $600 million of advertising. They are represented by the MIA (Motor Industry Association, for sellers of new vehicles), the VIA (Imported Motor Vehicle Industry Association, for sellers of used imports), and the MTA (all the above, plus resellers, petrol stations, and mechanics). Then there is the AA with 1.7 million members, half of all drivers in the country. I think it’s fair to say that they were all apoplectic about the government’s proposals.

You can read the MIA’s comments for yourself. They direct attention for emission reduction to agriculture, to the electricity sector, to the drivers of existing vehicles, and to the heavy vehicle sector – that is, to everywhere but the buyers of new cars, which is the area relevant to the MIA and to the plan itself. For the rise in land transport emissions, they blame previous governments, used vehicle importers, the lack of vehicle manufacturers in New Zealand, and buyers (for preferring utes and SUVs). They also blame external consultants and would prefer the industry to analyse itself.
Unlike the MIA, the AA does not blame car buyers (i.e., its members). However, they do blame car manufacturers for making larger vehicles, and Australia for having no fuel efficiency standard. They state, “The principal reason for the growth in transport carbon emissions is nothing to do with vehicle efficiency. It has been driven by population growth.” This does not seem to be the whole story. In the three years 2014–2017, emissions of light vehicles rose 13.7% while population rose 5.7%.

Neither the AA nor the MIA accepts any responsibility for the rise in land transport emissions, despite the fact that both organisations are heavily involved in it, the AA through its statutory role and through lobbying for more roads and favourable treatment for drivers, and the MIA through supplying vehicles and (especially) through advertising. Perhaps not surprisingly, the MIA does not favour any measure that impacts on the demand or supply of vehicles – the exact area in which its members operate. The AA says, “Lacking alternatives, much of New Zealand relies on motorised transport” – a situation due in part to the activities of the AA itself.

Both submissions say they recognise the need to reduce emissions from land transport, but neither organisation has shown much enthusiasm for the issue until now. As late as 2017 the AA were recommending ridiculously inadequate measures like educating people to drive more efficiently. The MIA’s industry-led proposal was found in 2008 to be overly complex and to have costs that exceeded its benefits. After it was dropped they don’t seem to have done anything on this issue until now. The MIA submission says they favour increased fuel taxes – how much, how often, will they tell their members and customers? More likely, they are saying this because they know it will go nowhere.

David Vinsen, chief executive of the Vehicle Importers Association, said the Government could instead “simply increase the excise tax on fuel to discourage emissions”. Simply? I don’t think so. 

Of course, these groups know now that fuel efficiency standards are actually coming. Should they cooperate in good faith, or should they try and distract and confuse the issue? Unfortunately, the MIA seems to have decided on the second strategy for the time being. A few days ago they launched their own proposal, to drop the standards entirely in favour of a feebate. The MIA’s feebate scheme exempts all vehicles between 100 and 230 gCO2/km (namely, the vast majority of all sales) entirely. They wouldn’t mind if the government chipped in to the subsidy part of the scheme as well, just to sweeten the deal.

You don’t need to run the numbers to see that the MIA’s proposal won’t have anything like the effect on emissions that is needed. In fact, it looks dangerously close to the strategy pursued by the oil and gas industry, described in Terrence Loomis’s recent book “The Predatory Delay Diaries: The petroleum industry’s survival campaign to slow New Zealand’stransition to a low carbon economy”.

But we’re not done, because, look over there… the public!

The public are perhaps the big unknown here. Any why shouldn’t we be? We hold diverse and often contradictory attitudes and behaviours. We can be fickle. 

We say that we’re getting more and more concerned about climate change, and three-quarters want the government to act more strongly on climate. 

But that’s easy to say. How would people really react if strong measures were introduced suddenly? Talk-back was running hot over Auckland’s 10c fuel surcharge, introduced in 2018, and that was enough to kill its roll-out elsewhere in the country.

I don’t think the Clean Car Standard as proposed will provoke too much unrest. It’s a gentle change, phased in gradually over a period of years. All economic and climate arguments support it. It fits the call for a “careful revolution”, in the words of David Hall. On the other hand, cars are emotional objects, and the National Party saw value in attacking the proposal last year in an ad that was later found to be misleading.

Climate change minister James Shaw said, “transport [emissions] have just gone up and up and up because we fell in love with the Ford Ranger” (a sound-bite I heard repeated on talk-back radio). The Ford Ranger, of which 10,000 are sold every year in New Zealand compared to 50,000 in the whole of Europe. “A pickup designed to last forever – just when its time is running out,” in the words of one review.

Perhaps the reason that the different parties are sounding so different here is that they have different views on the transport system as a whole. The car industry see the system as a free market, almost frozen in time, with themselves being minutely attuned to consumer preferences. The responsibility for emissions, if it lies anywhere, falls on each individual driver (or buyer).

Another view is that the entire transport system has built up over many decades as the collective result of many decisions by car manufacturers, oil companies, urban planners, central and local governments and many different factions within the public – including individuals, who can only make choices from those that are available to them. Responsibility for emissions is shared right across the spectrum. 

In climate circles there is a lot of talk of the need for a ‘just transition’. This originally meant taking into account the needs of workers in the coal, oil, and gas industries, which necessarily face major disruption; it can also mean making sure that inequality is not increased by changes such as carbon taxes. I suppose it could at a stretch refer to the makers and sellers of fossil-fuelled cars. But in New Zealand’s case we only have the sellers, not the makers, so there is less potential for an industrial hit. Second, some car companies have been dealing with emissions much more openly and positively than others. Shouldn’t they reap the rewards? Protecting the laggards just risks even more delay. Finally, I don’t think the industry as a whole really has anything to fear from the Clean Car Standard. 

Understanding climate change means knowing that road transport emissions have to come down. There’s a steady, sensible way to do start doing it. We should do it and then, once we’ve got the hang of it, work out the next step. And the car industry should embrace it as if its life depended on it.

Climate change emergency: Time to slam on the brakes

Cimate change is a complex issue and there are many views as to the best way forward. One point, however, risks getting lost in the details: to address climate change, we have to stop burning fossil fuels. Total warming is basically determined by the total amount of fossil fuels burnt. The graphic below shows the total CO2 emitted since the beginning of the industrial revolution:

Historic CO2 emissions from globalcarbonproject.org; budgets from IPCC 1.5C report.

The massive increase in burning fossil fuels starting around 1960, now called the Great Acceleration, is clearly visible, as is the rise of China from 2005. You can see how we have eased off on the accelerator in the last few years. Now we need to slam on the brakes.

We may miss the 1.5C target, we may even miss the 2C target; somewhere in this range risks triggering the melting of all of Greenland and Antarctica, with associated 70 metres of sea level rise over a few thousand years. (Already, late in the 20th century, the large grounded ice sheets began peeling off the sea floor, destabilised and melted from below.) But whatever point we reach, we will still need to continue to focus on stopping burning fossil fuels.

Yes, agricultural emissions are important too, both in New Zealand and globally. One large dairy cow emits the equivalent greenhouse gases as one large car. But the cow earns money and produces a useful product, while most cars do not earn money – they are a large money sink and, in many cases, more of a consumer item. New Zealand spends $5 billion a year importing fossil fuels, a terrifically bad investment. Whatever happens with agriculture does not avoid the primary need to stop burning fossil fuels.

Yes, planting trees can help, effectively taking carbon out of the air and storing it in solid form above ground for as long as the bush or plantation lasts. Planting trees can buy us a little time while we stop burning fossil fuels.

For individuals, the best course of action is straightforward. For transport, switch from burning petrol or diesel to walking, cycling, public transport, or an EV – already cheaper on total cost of ownership than petrol or diesel for most New Zealand drivers. If you burn gas, switch to electricity or (for space heating) wood. Avoid unnecessary air travel. A few individuals doing these things doesn’t help much on the emissions front, but it builds a community of experience, awareness, and support which will help our whole society stop burning fossil fuels.

For businesses, the best course of action is to adopt a carbon management plan, certified by (for example) Enviro-Mark Solutions, a New Zealand company with growing export earnings that has been extensively reviewed and validated by international studies. There are two options: carboNZero, which means that your entire operation is carbon neutral, and CEMARS (Certified Emissions Measurement and Reduction Scheme), which ensures a measured reduction in emissions over time.

The results can be startling. Auckland International Airport reduced emissions 35 per cent in 5 years with significant cost savings. Kāpiti Coast District Council is well over halfway towards reducing emissions by 80 per cent by 2021, with cost savings of $1.3m per year. The Warehouse is CEMARS certified. Even large, carbon-intensive companies like Mainfreight are strongly focused on reducing their emissions.

In the words of University of Auckland physicist Richard Easther, “If you’re in charge of something in 2019, you’re in charge of the climate. If your job has anything to do with transport, what’s your plan to ‘decarbonise’, starting right now?” For many sectors, including land freight, city buses, and rubbish trucks, imports of diesel road vehicles can stop right now.

After 30 years of climate change discussion, planning, and action, the burning of fossil fuels is still on the increase in New Zealand. It needs to stop.

Robert McLachlan and Steve Trewick.
 This article appeared first on stuff.co.nz on 29 January 2019. See original article.

There’s no easy way to cut aviation emissions, except by flying less

Paul Callister, Deirdre Kent and Robert McLachlan

We congratulate Stuff for its series on climate change. But one area has received relatively little attention – that of flying.

Though aviation is emission-profligate and the fastest growing source of emissions, it presents particular challenges. You can replace your petrol-driven car with a modern electric car. But flying is more complex, as there is no easy way of reducing its heavy dependence on fossil fuels in the foreseeable future.

For New Zealand, it is especially challenging. It has been estimated that, at any point in time, more than one million New Zealand residents are living or travelling overseas.

More than a quarter of New Zealanders were born overseas, many retaining close links to friends and family in their country of origin. Keeping in touch with whānau is a strong driver of the wish to fly. In addition, within New Zealand we don’t have fast rail linking our major centres, and low-cost long-distance bus travel is currently of poor quality. Our rapidly expanding tourism industry also depends on people often travelling long distances to get here.

The problem is that flying is an important contributor to our greenhouse gas emissions. This impact is forecast to increase in absolute terms and as a proportion of New Zealand’s total emissions.

The increase comes about through the rapidly growing popularity of long-distance travel, as well as a massive growth in airfreight driven in part by online retailing. (The Auckland airport company is currently planning for 40m passengers a year to pass through its facility by 2040.) The increase in flight emissions counteracts the reduction in greenhouse emissions that other sectors of the economy are working towards, including farming.

So what is the size of the challenge? New Zealand’s international aviation emissions, unregulated by the Paris Agreement, were 3.4m tonnes of CO₂ equivalent in 2016, up 152 per cent from 1990. There is insufficient land to produce enough biofuel and it’s a major challenge to go electric, even for short flights.

What can we do to change the trajectory?

Individuals can choose to fly less. Inspired by Sweden’s #flygfritt 2019challenge to be flight-free, Britain has launched its #flightfree2019 campaign. There is now a Fly-less Kiwis Facebook group.

Businesses, government agencies and universities can reduce their dependence on flying through video conferencing, virtual workshops and by examining the necessity of each trip. They can stop the practice of giving employees airpoints for personal use, a tax-free incentive to fly.

We can remove wider incentives including airpoints, flybuys, finance company loans for international travel, and subsidies for regional airlines.

We can improve low-carbon forms of travel within New Zealand, for example with high-speed trains between Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga, and improved long-distance bus services.

As Wellington lawyer Tom Bennion states in Chris Watson’s book Beyond Flying, “Air travel is the ultimate low-hanging fruit in terms of a significant step that individuals can take immediately to prevent catastrophic climate change.”

This article appeared first on Stuff.co.nz on 12 December 2018. See original article.

Let’s talk about cars

2018 should be a big year for climate mitigation in New Zealand as three factors converge: the potential for a Zero Carbon Act, continuously rising emissions and a growing sentiment for action from the public.

To cut emissions we need to stop investing in fossil fuel infrastructure and invest instead in renewable energy infrastructure. While all countries struggle with this, Australia and the US, for example, are closing coal plants and investing in solar and wind. This builds clean energy industries and creates expertise which can be a base for further progress in the future. In New Zealand there are no large commercial solar farms, no large wind farms are planned (the last moderately-sized wind farm to be constructed was Meridian’s 60MW Mill Creek, in Wellington in 2014), while Contact and Nova are renovating and building gas power stations. Indeed, in the present policy environment, unless demand grows, why would an existing generator build a wind farm? Adding a wind farm would lower the wholesale price of electricity and potentially leave all generators worse off.

But let’s talk about cars. The car importing business represents a huge, ongoing malinvestment in fossil fuel infrastructure which we must face head on. The 325,000 petrol and diesel cars imported to New Zealand last year will be emitting greenhouse gases for many years to come. Worse, the total number of cars is increasing rapidly – a development that took many people by surprise, after an apparent plateau during the GFC (there were even articles at that time about how young people preferred to buy a smartphone than a car). The climate only cares about cumulative emissions, but at the moment it is not clear how we can compensate for our cumulative transport emissions, since 2000, say. In the past three years we’ve been adding 183,000 vehicles (almost all of them cars and small commercials) to the fleet per year. Aucklanders can guess where most of them have ended up.


Number of vehicles in New Zealand, 2000-2017. Source: NZTA. Credit: Environmental Health Indicators New Zealand. This represents one of the highest ownership rates in the world (compare our 4.22m vehicles to our 3.7m adults).

CO2 is invisible; the damage in extracting, processing, and burning oil is often far away and invisible. But cars are not invisible. They are very much in your face, every day for most of us, especially in our cities that are now completely choked with cars. You can’t turn on the TV for five minutes without seeing an ad for an SUV or sports car. For most of us the car is our single greatest source of personal greenhouse gas emissions.

Many believe that electric vehicle technology (EV, including both full electrics and plug-in hybrids) is superior to the internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV). It cuts local emissions significantly — by 90 percent today, and by more tomorrow as we move to 100 percent renewable electricity. Techno-optimists can point to Tesla, to the trickle of EV models becoming a flood, to massive investments by old and new car manufacturers. They see EVs becoming cheaper, with longer range and complete charging networks. At this point EVs will be winning on all points and the revolution assured. There may be a rapid ‘S-curve’ adoption like that of the smartphone.

I am not so sure.

First, progress around the world has been extremely variable to date.

Here are the market shares of EV sales, as a percentage of total sales, in three leading markets, Norway, Iceland, and Sweden, all three doubling every two years or less:

                    2013           2014           2015           2016           2017

Norway      6%              14%            23%           27%            34%

Iceland       0.9%           2.7%           2.9%          5.7%           13%

Sweden      0.7%           1.7%           2.6%          3.2%           4.7%

Market share of electric vehicle sales, as a percentage of total sales.

Now for three very large markets that have been trying hard, the UK and Germany (doubling every two years) and the  US (doubling every 5 years).

                   2013           2014           2015           2016           2017

UK              0.2%           0.6%           1.1%          1.5%           1.9%

Germany   0.2%           0.4%           0.8%          0.8%           1.6%

US              0.6%           0.7%           0.7%          0.9%           1.2%

Optimists foresee a worldwide doubling of market share every two years, reaching 60 percent by 2030; after that, bans on the sale of ICEVs are more prevalent, and the transition could largely be complete by 2040. Heavy transport follows close behind and 60 percent of oil consumption could be  gone by 2050.

But consider one very sad story, Denmark, a country of 6m people and a renewable energy leader in Europe, which has experienced mixed results with their EV policies:

                   2013           2014           2015           2016           2017

Denmark    0.3%           0.9%           2.3%          0.6%           0.4%

                   

Tax on new vehicles, previously 180 percent, had been waived for EVs. From 2016 the tax was reduced to 150 percent for ICEVs, while the EV tax was raised to 20 percent in 2016 and is being phased in to 150 percent by 2022. Despite the high tax, Denmark still has some the highest per-capita car sales in Europe.

Another perplexing example is the Netherlands, which also has sizeable (but fluctuating) incentives, as well as the most extensive charging network in the world, but no clear signal of accelerating adoption:

                   2013           2014           2015           2016           2017

Netherlands    5.6%          3.9%           9.6%          6.0%           2.2%

Second, the EV transition may need more help to become a reality.

The first six countries above all have complex and widespread incentive systems in place. Norway provides an effective discount of about 1/3 of the up-front cost, with other extensive ongoing incentives. The US provides a discount of up to US$10,000 and a gas guzzler tax (in place since 1978) of up to US$7700. The UK has a petrol excise tax of 58p/l (compare New Zealand’s 60c/l, the same in real terms as 50 years ago), an EV rebate of up to £8000, and no road tax for EVs—but up to £1120 + £515/year for gas guzzlers. Controversially, the UK road tax system was changed in April 2017, so far without ill effect on EV sales.

Third, getting the transition underway may require a change in attitudes.

Robert Llewellyn, host of the popular web series ‘Fully Charged’, remarked in his testimony to a parliamentary committee on EVs that he does not see the famous ‘S-curve’ transition as being in the bag by any means. People have a complex emotional relationship to their cars. They may stick to their favourite kind of car (or an emerging new one, like the huge SUV) beyond any obvious reason. I find it striking that in the EV world, most people want to talk up the amazing advantages of EVs; yet few want to dwell on the evil of ICEVs. I like to imagine public health information posted at petrol stations such as these:[1] 

This vehicle emits poisonous gases and you may be killing your neighbours by its  operation.

This vehicle emits gases known to be damaging to the long term stability of the climate and estimated to cause trillions of dollars in damages.

The exhaust gases of this fuel remain in the air and oceans for thousands of years, raising sea levels and acidifying the oceans.

The product you are dispensing is directly responsi[2] ble for major wars and terrorist attacks.

It may seem far fetched, but the public seems to  accept  analogous warnings on cigarettes. Why not on fossil fuel burning cars?

Some activists, such as Naomi Klein, would say that driving a petrol car is wrong. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is suing oil companies for first-degree murder, would say that the manufacturers, importers, and sellers of cars, the producers and refiners and sellers and burners of oil, are in fact a public nuisance. And clearly, the Volkswagen emissions scandal ‘Dieselgate’, the ExxonMobil climate change denial controversy ‘ExxonKnew’,[3]  and some mining operations are wrong. But most of us are both actors and victims, caught in a difficult situation. Some car companies are clearly stalling, others are deliberating restricting the supply of ‘compliance vehicles’, but all of them need the income from selling ICEVs to fund the development of EVs, and they’re the ones with money and expertise. Just to pick one local example from many, Toyota NZ—a leader in the Sustainable Business Council and in greening their own operations—feels compelled to fill their ‘Sustainability’ page with subtle digs at all-electric vehicles, because Toyota doesn’t have one.

It’s a tautology that ceasing investment in ICEVs means not actually buying them anymore. Incentives, charges, advertising campaigns, are just mechanisms. Are people really ready for that to happen? In general terms, New Zealanders say they want the government to act on climate change but have we made the connection to our  own behaviour and the current freedom to pollute? We’re talking about changes coming that will make the extra 10c/l in the pipeline for Auckland look like spare change.

Fourth, time is running out, both for the planet and for our goals.

A Zero Carbon 2050 Act is coming this year. That’s 32 years. Planting trees will buy us some time, but let’s regard them as offsetting agricultural emissions. CO2 should see steeper reductions than methane, and many industries will need ongoing protection while acceptable  reduction plans are set in place globally. (There’s no point closing one of the world’s cleanest smelters, Tiwai Point, when China is building coal-fired smelters flat out.) Some sectors, such as aviation, have no low-emission options yet. What’s left? Private cars! The alternative exists already; the emissions savings are large; there is no local car industry to protect or cajole; while cars have some productive value, they are by and large consumer items; the NZ$8.4b a year we spend importing vehicles is a valuable existing source of finance that can fund the low-emission transition; the NZ$5b a year we spend importing fuel is a pointless ongoing drain on the current account. As the transition gets underway, the fuel savings will grow rapidly.

The actions required for the scale and speed of the transition could be  large. One proposal currently gaining attention is a feebate, developed in depth by Barry Barton and Peter Schūtte in a November 2015 report. A feebate is charged on every newly imported vehicle that is directly related to its emissions. In the simplest model, the feebate varies in direct proportion to emissions and adjusted so that the entire scheme is revenue neutral. Let’s consider an example. (The actual dollar amounts can be scaled up or down depending on what is needed.) Buyers of a gas guzzler like the biggest 240g/km Toyota Hilux or Mercedes might pay an extra NZ$4000 up front. Buyers of smaller cars like the 140g/km Honda Civic  or the 110g/km Toyota Yaris might get rebates of NZ$2000-3500, while 17g/km EVs get a rebate of NZ$9,000. The amounts would change over time as the fleet gets cleaner. The difficult question, not answered here, is the overall scale of the scheme. With these numbers — broadly similar to what other countries are already doing — NZ$300m is changing hands per year. Not a small sum, but not as big as the NZ$13b spent last year on vehicles and fuel. At some point, the scale of the scheme has to be pegged to the market response.

The Barton-Schūtte proposal achieves emissions reductions in one area — cars. That goes against decades of official thinking in New Zealand, which is that a single price for carbon may decarbonize the economy at least cost. This kind of thinking has to go. Not only is it not necessarily true, it flies in the face of the reality that (a) our emissions are rising, not falling, and (b) we don’t have a fixed price for carbon anyway; there are all sorts of exemptions and allowances in place. Andy Reisinger, of the NZ Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre, wrote in submission to the Productivity Commission that:

“I disagree … that direct regulation doesn’t achieve emission reductions at overall least cost to the economy. That statement would only be true if there were no market failures, no information limitations or asymmetries, and no preferences in specific interest groups that go beyond economics… It is also important to consider whether least-cost is the dominant criterion for policy choices, or whether risk, equity, social inclusion etc. are not equally or more important”.

Even the Australian government, so far no EV hero, is now considering direct regulations that would cut emissions of new cars 45 percent by 2025.

So 2018 really is shaping up to be a big year. As the groundwork takes place for the Zero Carbon Act and the Climate Commission, there will be plenty of opportunities to talk about cars.

This article first appeared on 9 April 2018 at pureadvantage.org. 
Postscript: We now know that New Zealand did not get a Zero Carbon Act in 2018. Maybe in 2019?