The cost of this reversal to New Zealand’s reputation outweighs the potential benefits, says Winton. This earned New Zealand criticism from its Pacific neighbours and the first Fossil of the Day dishonour at COP28. In their place: a loosening of regulations permitting urban sprawl, which is known to increase emissions, and a reversal of the ban on oil and gas exploration, announced last week. Gone are financial incentives for electric-car buyers, and funding for cycleways and public transport. In September 2023, Treasury estimated that purchasing offsets would cost New Zealand between NZ$3bn and NZ$23bn, depending on carbon prices, which has not been acknowledged by either Labour or National’s planned budgets. If the country overshoots its emissions, it must buy offsets. It plans to use funds from its carbon auction to pay for tax cuts. Luxon has repeatedly restated National’s commitment to the Paris Agreement, but the party does not have a pathway to meet New Zealand’s targets, says Winton. The newly created minister for hunting and fishing has a seat. Not only does the climate minister remain outside cabinet, but the environment minister has been booted out, too. While on the campaign trail, National party leader Christopher Luxon promised to one-up Labour’s poor climate record by seating his climate minister in cabinet. Instead, to reduce agricultural emissions, the government is counting on new technologies yet to be developed – “magic beans”, in the words of climate analyst Paul Winton – rather than tools that already exist. The freshwater policy was also set to reduce emissions by further limiting the number of livestock that could occupy farmland. A government survey in 2018 found that 82% of New Zealanders felt it was “very or extremely important” to improve water quality. Those waterways are in dire condition: three-quarters of all land is leaching more E.coli into rivers than health standards allow. An initiative introduced by National in 2011, then continued by successive governments, it prioritises the health of waterways above usage of them. The rollback of freshwater protections is particularly concerning to both Toki and Taylor. “And now we’re going to go backwards.” Relying on ‘magic beans’ “Our trajectory over the last several terms of several governments has been progressive,” says Taylor. Taylor, who’s worked with governments since 1980, has never seen a set of policies so antagonistic to the environment. “And so they’ve shifted from being compassionate conservatives, to being much more radical – repudiating the blue-green tradition that National’s had for for many years.” “I think National has traded off its environmental policies, or a lot of them, to the minor parties to build the coalition,” says Gary Taylor, chief executive of the Environmental Defence Society. New Zealand has a reputation for progressive governments when it comes to the environment. Students march through the streets of Wellington to raise awareness of the climate crisis in 2019. It will revisit emissions reduction targets for agriculture – the country’s largest source of emissions – and ditch plans for a renewable energy storage system designed to end reliance on fossil fuels. It will reclassify pests such as deer, which prevent forests from regenerating, as non-pests. The government plans to repeal legislation protecting natural habitats and improving freshwater health. “What they’ve done is they are promulgating policy that will essentially do the opposite of all of those things.” “They said they wanted to focus on cleaning up freshwater, boosting biodiversity, delivering for the climate, celebrating oceans, reducing waste, fixing planning laws,” says Toki. There, the party’s environmental goals were unwound. Toki had been waiting to examine it: the policy was published the day before voting closed.īut National did not win enough votes to govern alone and spent six weeks in coalition negotiations. Leading into the election, National’s environmental policy was solid, if a little vague, says Nicola Toki, chief executive of non-profit Forest and Bird.
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