Climate Change Minister Simon Watts. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
The government has quietly rejected Climate Change Commission advice to set a much more ambitious 'net negative' long-term target for carbon emissions.
Instead, it will retain the original 2050 goal of net-zero emissions of carbon dioxide and other long-lived gases.
That's despite warnings from the Climate Change Commission that the effects of climate change are hitting the country sooner and more severely than expected, and that New Zealand can and should be doing more.
A climate policy expert says the decision is "incredibly consequential" and should have been communicated more transparently.
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts has previously told RNZ that - according to current projections - New Zealand could reach net-zero as early as 2042.
The decision not to change the net-zero target was included in the fine print of an announcement last month that the government was also lowering the methane emissions target.
The Commission had recommended a strengthened methane target, but the government said it would instead legislate to lower it, from a 24-47 percent emissions reduction by 2050 to a 14-24 percent emissions reduction.
The 2050 net-zero carbon decision was contained in a single line published on the Ministry for the Environment's website last month.
Watts' office confirmed the decision on Friday, saying it was included with materials released when the methane target was announced.
The government was due to communicate its formal decision to the Commission by Friday, with the response to be publicly released soon after.
A net negative target would have seen New Zealand removing more carbon from the atmosphere than it was producing.
Carbon dioxide is an incredibly long-lived gas. Its warming effect in the atmosphere lasts for centuries.
In its advice recommending the more ambitious target, the Commission said the world was not on track to limit warming to 1.5°C.
"Climate change is driving more frequent and severe weather events, sea-level rise and ocean acidification," it said.
"These are happening sooner, and with more intensity, than was expected when Aotearoa New Zealand's emissions reduction target was set in 2019. Every tonne of emissions averted or removed from the atmosphere matters."
Analysis showed it was possible for the country to move further and faster to reduce emissions, while still growing the economy.
"Delaying action will reduce the options available in the future. It will also result in higher risks and costs, and opportunities lost, for us and our children."
Writing on LinkedIn, independent climate policy expert Christina Hood said the decision not to strengthen the long-lived gas target was "an incredibly consequential decision for NZ's emissions path and the level of warming we cause".
"It locks in a target that the Climate Change Commission has said is entirely inadequate."
Hood said she, like others, had missed the decision at the time.
"It would be really, really helpful if the government were to at least communicate decisions like this clearly and transparently."
Green Party co-leader and climate change spokesperson Chlöe Swarbrick said New Zealand was a world leader when it first set its net-zero target in 2019.
"Six years on, that is no longer the case," she said.
"The Climate Change Commission has made it abundantly clear that the reasons for upgrading our target are not only the science, but also the importance of the resilience of our economy."
Climate change was "a cost of living disaster", Swarbrick said.
"Not only when we're thinking about the immediate impacts of more frequent and severe climate change charge weather events, but also the withdrawal of insurance and reinsurance, which has flow on effects to mortgages and therefore the housing crisis, let alone the impact on our farmers with the lack of seasonal predictability and otherwise."
The government had "buried" the announcement.
"It actually boggles the mind, the unwillingness to be honest and to be transparent and to be accountable."
The government has not yet announced its decision on the Commission's third and final recommendation, which is to include emissions from international shipping and aviation in the 2050 target.
A spokesperson for Watts said that decision would be made public before the end of the year.
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