National won't vote for Climate Change Commission proposals in current form
The National Party says it cant support the Climate Change Commissions draft plan to cut New Zealands greenhouse gas emissions unless changes are made. If National maintains this position when the Government puts its response to the commissions final advice to a vote in Parliament later this year, it could shatter a bipartisan consensus on climate change that has lasted for just two years. Climate Change Minister James Shaw said that only time would tell whether the consensus on climate change would hold. My intention is to continue to give them every opportunity to participate, Shaw said. READ MORE: * Climate Change Commission confirms real Government action will be a minefield * Government commits to shrinking carbon budgets and new Paris target * Election 2020: Jacinda Ardern says National's agriculture policy would take country back 'decades' Nationals climate change spokesperson Stuart Smith said the advice from the commission is not presently in a form where National could support it. In a submission to the commission on its draft emissions reduction plan, Smith said Nationals chief objections included a lack of transparency from the commission about the modelling of the economic effects of emissions reduction , and a lack of detail around the more than 70 policies it suggested could be implemented to curb emissions. The commission has drafted emissions reduction budgets and a policy platform to help the countrys emissions fall within those budgets, recommending things like a scheme to lift the uptake of electric vehicles, and a ban on the installation of new household gas connections. Smith said the commission should release the assumptions that underlie its economic model for scrutiny. A sensitivity analysis should be conducted of the models, that would show whether small changes to the assumptions that underlie the model would have big implications for the cost of cutting emissions. One example Smith gave in his submission was that the commission assumed electric vehicles would cost as much as petrol vehicles by 2030 or 2032. He argued a sensitivity analysis would show if, for example, parity were achieved five years later than the commission assumed, how much the proposed changes would cost the economy. The cost would presumably be higher because the length of time required to subsidise electric vehicles would be dragged out for longer. Smith said that it was unreasonable for National to sign up to back the 70 policy proposals put forward by the commission, given the lack of detail around them. As drafted, the Commissions Emissions Reduction Plan puts the National Party Caucus in an impossible position. We are being asked to support 70 policies without seeing analysis of whom they will impact and how much they will cost. Smith wrote in his submission. This is potentially a problem with the commission structure itself. Few party caucuses would commit to 70 or more policies at once, particularly without detailed costings. By the same token, its impractical for a small organisation like the commission to provide detailed analysis of nearly every policy that will be used to fight climate change in the next decade. Shaw said that the commission wasnt designed to be a policy shop, so it was wrong to look at the policy proposals put forward as being holy writ. The model here is one of challenge and response. The idea is that the Climate Change Commission challenges the Government by putting up the emissions budgets, and it suggests areas of policy that may help achieve those, Shaw said. The Government will still need to include policies for how it plans to meet the emissions budgets when it tables its response in Parliament later this year. This could put National in a difficult position of agreeing to the emissions budgets themselves, but not the policies used to achieve them. The party was placed in a similar position when the Commission was established: National voted to establish the Commission, but vowed to repeal parts of the Zero Carbon Act dealing with methane if it won the 2020 election. Shaw said during his negotiations with National on the establishment of the commission, he promised there would be plenty of room for political disputes over climate change, but what was important was that the consensus underlying the countrys climate change strategy endured. You can get plenty of people to agree to halving transport emissions, but they may have an entirely different view of how we could do that, Shaw said. Smith himself would prefer more work to be done on using the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which sets a floating price for emissions. We know from their own report that the ETS will get us to net zero by 2050, Smith said. Actually, the report said that in the Emissions Trading Scheme (NZ ETS) alone wont get us to where we need to be. Action is needed across all sectors of the economy. But Smith pointed to another part of the report that also modelled an emissions reduction path using just the ETS. This scenario sees the price of a unit of emissions rise to $50 (its about $35 currently). A higher emissions price would encourage more tree planting to offset emissions, leading to about 1.3 million hectares of planting by 2050, the Commission said. That would allow net zero emissions to be reached with minimal further reductions in gross emissions according to the commission, but it would also mean vast tracts of the country would have to be forested - something both National and Labour have raised concerns about. This is not sustainable and would leave the next generation with the task of reducing gross emissions at the same time as they will need to be adapting to escalating climate change impacts, the Climate Change Commission said. Shaw said he was surprised at Nationals support for using the ETS tool It surprised me that the National Party were so keen on converting so much farmland to forestry, because thats what that does. Because you have no policies in place, and you just have the ETS price then you get massive afforestation, Shaw said. Smiths submission is understood to have stirred some controversy in his own party. He submitted it to the commission ahead of getting a final signoff from caucus. Smith has also written to Shaw requesting that the commission delay reporting back to the Government until August, giving it time to respond to criticism made by submitters. Shaw said he would respond to Smith within a week.