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11:50 am, December 4th, 2025 - 12 comments
Categories: climate change, Environment, ETS, national, nicola willis, same old national, science, treasury -
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It appears to be more and more inevitable that National will welch on the country’s Paris Accord obligations.
The obligation is essentially simple. New Zealand has promised to reduce its net greenhouse emissions by 51-55% of 2005 levels by 2035.
To achieve this, we need to cut that 51-55% from domestic emissions. If we don’t then we will have to purchase carbon credits. Cute language suggesting there is no legal obligation will not cut the muster as far as our international relations are concerned.
This intent appeared early in this Government’s reign but has become more and more likely as time goes by.
And this means that there is potentially a rather large hole in the country’s finances. The estimate is that it could cost up to $24 billion.
The problem is that recognising the liability in the country’s financial books would make them look pretty sick. And this would not help the Government parties in election year. So they have been busily trying to delay any recognition of the large financial hole that their 54 policy changes which have kneecapped the country’s climate change response have helped create.
From Kate Newton at Radio New Zealand:
Finance Minister Nicola Willis said [on Tuesday this week] this week that the government was not prepared “to send cheques for billions of dollars offshore” for carbon credits, in order to meet its 2030 Paris Agreement commitment.
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts said the government was still “exploring all available options to meet our [2030] commitment” but that offshore mitigation – paying to help other countries reduce their emissions – was not part of the current plan.
The Government is confident that scientific advances will resolve the issue. This is comparable to buying lotto tickets to make mortgage payments.
Then yesterday Treasury secretary Iain Rennie suggested that Treasury were contemplating including the liability in future books for the country.
From Emma Ricketts at Stuff:
[Rennie] told the finance committee that he had reconsidered Treasury’s position since [the earlier comments by Willis].“I hear the public interest,” he said. “I want to do something similar [to the 2023 report]. We’re a bit constrained in terms of priorities so I’m not going to promise we’re going to do it in the next six months … but we can think about how we can appropriately provide more transparency.”
Pushed by Swarbrick on whether something could be done by Budget 2026, Rennie said that was unlikely. “I won’t commit to something today because we haven’t done substantive work since 2023.”
But they would try and produce something before next year’s Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update, he said.
The contrast between comments is stark. Willis did not want to even acknowledge that our potential Paris Accord liability exists. Rennie has indicated essentially that it does exist and should be accounted for.
Manwhile the carbon price continues to crash.
You would think at a time where the country’s climate change response has been deliberately stalled and the potential need for purchased credits is increasing that the price would also increase. The fact that prices are crashing shows that the ETS market is broken. And news from yesterday that not a single bidder registed for the Government’s latest Emissions Trading Scheme auction shows how much faith the market has in the Government’s commitment to the ETS.
This morning there was further news that shows how completely disinterested this Government is in doing anything about our greenhouse gas emissions. It rejected every recommendation made by the Climate Change Commission, every single one. And this is despite the Commission’s warning that the effects of climate change on the country were greater in both severity and scale than was understood in 2019 and that greater impacts are being felt at lower temperature levels than previously expected.
This government is full of environmental vandals and people prepared to welech on the country’s international obligations despite the reputational, legal and environmental consequences.
Shame on them.
Colour me surprised
Well exactly. "It's a case of slower to go faster". National, and more recently ACT, are firmly stuck in the past / mud on this issue – going slower since forever.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/09/08/the-paris-agreement-isnt-perfect-leaving-isnt-the-answer/
Tractor mounted Hero to Groundswells, Gorons and assorted Gumbies..(Though thats not fair to the real Gumby : )
MS. Thankyou for your continuous efforts to highlight the NAct1 lowlights. It sure helps my morale.(and I hope for others too..)
In one of your Links there is a photo of Minister Simon Watts (IMO a quite dim bulb)….I'm struck by a feeling that he is not only out of his depth…but out of phase as it were. He always appears to be not quite in the present moment of time…well its my perception.
And yes you have indeed got good Climate Links. (For those who cant seem to find Investigative Climate Reporters/Correspondents ?)
This was an earlier warning which, IMO, starkly lays it out…And Greens Chloe Swarbrick, who I greatly respect, asks those questions. (You know..the hard ones)
Hate to say it but the ets, and any form of carbon trading was doomed , that doesn't mean we don't need to act , but I reckon scrap it then build a completely in-house cap and tax system with all income directly invested in solutions in aotearoa, not a cent goes over seas, a for gods sack stop letting companies plant trees so they can keep polluting.
I suspect that National will use this as a wedge issue with Labour. If Labour honours the commitment the narrative will all be about how Labour is sending NZ’ers money overseas. So unfair if it goes down this way but Labour is going to have to box clever to avoid getting caught out here. There is a similar triangulation squeeze looming with the pay equity issue
@ upside down can you point me to any data that says carbon trading has significantly cut emmisions?
maybe there is little. mind, price per ton of carbon has been in a price band of $40 to $70 per ton of carbon. It has been estimated by the Climate Change Commission that the price will need to rise to $200 or more to drive significant GHG emissions.
National and ACT have stated that they want the ETS to be the main tool to drive GHG reductions. More than 2 years into their government per ton of carbon now sub $40. The only conclusion you can draw – absolutely no commitment to reducing GHG emissions, all talk no action, promises made on the election campaign not worth a tinkers cuss
Will the Paris agreement become another underinvestment for National to use as a weapon against the incoming Labour government?
In its formal reasons for rejecting the commission's advice, the government said it had weighed the benefits of climate action against the economic costs.
Modelling indicated that GDP would be 0.4 percent lower than the status quo in 2035, and 2.2 percent lower in 2050, if it implemented the stronger targets.
"Implementing the Commission's recommended target would also require major policy reform and private sector action," it said.
Fk me, geniuses them lot. reducing green house gases would require action, holy heck, what a revelation. thank heavens we have Watts, Luxon and Willis here to point this out to us. I mean, I had assumed that the current government approach of doing nothing might significantly reduce emissions. whoever would have thought that some action was required.
As for a 0.4 – 2.2 % reduction in GDP, That's what Nicola Willis has managed to do in 2 years. Maybe Willis, Luxon, Watts should have a think what reduction in GDP might equate to in 2050 with drought following drought following drought following cyclones
The export categories most at risk of retaliation from our key EU trading partners are all in food and beverage: most vulnerable sector to that are farmers.
Not the services sector, digital games, computing, screen production and the like.
When Sainsbury's finally require compulsory carbon mile measures on lamb and wine and cheese, it won't be the game and digital clusters of Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin that get the economic backlash.
It will instead be the same National+Act fucking morons who drove their tractors up and down the city streets in 2018.
It won't happen overnight, but it will happen.
Let's get real about the 2030 target. It's essentially an emissions cut of 22%, fluffed up to look like a 50% cut with a whole lotta toxic pine plantations thrown into the mix
… and relying on offshore credits to meet the rest (something that others frown upon – see the Climate Action Tracker policy on Article 6). Zero integrity.
On forestry "carbon sinks" – they don't work. A tree cannot offset fossil fuel emissions, because of its impermanence. At least 20% of every tonne of fossil carbon will still be in the atmosphere in 10,000 years time. That CANNOT be offset by a tree that would sequester carbon for 35 years after which it's harvested and replaced. At least 20% of this endeavour would have to continue for 10,000 years. Untenable.
So Labour's target was crap. And we were never going to meet it. Arguably we were already breaching the Paris Agreement by failing to meet our target. A lot of other countries will not meet theirs either.
While actively rolling back policies the way this lot have done could be different, but let's not forget Chippy began the climate policy bonfire the minute he took over from Jacinda. Labour needs pushing on climate equally as much as this hideous coalition. I don't think Chippy has even mentioned the word in public in months. And they're now playing with the idea of a coalition with NZ First. That'll work – no doubt any deal Winston would make would also ensure the Greens are kept outside Cabinet and, with that, the Climate Change portfolio would continue to be outside Cabinet.
I'm not defending the Coalition here, but I'm also very wary of what the Opposition is offering right now. And especially the biggest Opposition party – hearing nothing to make me think they would lift a finger.