“It’s the putting right that counts” - New Zealand’s climate change imperative

New Zealand Climate Crisis: Blog 3

[1711 words - an 8 minute read]

The moral imperative for “putting right” the effects of climate change.

The phrase “it’s the putting right that counts” will be familiar to many older New Zealanders as the centerpiece of television advertisements for an electronic retailer from some decades ago which emphasized the business’ reputation and service ethic for remedying faults.

The currency of the phrase remains valid today when it comes to fields of endeavour where matters of trust and integrity are paramount.

This, in my view, includes addressing anthropogenic climate change - major, downstream environmental problems that our global production (i.e. lifestyle) processes have caused and which need to be fixed in an effective and timely manner to satisfy the customer, Earth and its family.

While we, and almost all other countries are taking action, the repair process is taking far longer than it should and the magnitude of the climate change problem continues to get worse. This is evidenced by the slew of publications, (including The State of the Global Climate by the World Meteorological Organisation) over recent times.

We now have a narrow (to the mid-2030’s at the latest) and closing window to hugely lift our efforts. We must avoid significant, community-wide impacts over coming decades and longer and this entails holding the average global temperature increase to less than 2C.

From a lifestyle, product lifecycle perspective, the challenges are not due to any lack of spare parts (we know what to do) or capacity (we have the resources to do what is needed) but primarily because the management teams i.e. Governments , especially in the developed world, including New Zealand, do not appear to subscribe to the “it’s the putting right that counts” philosophy.

The current government position on this issue

Instead the prevailing narrative, for many, appears to be “do as little as we can get away with on the grounds that doing more would affect our comfortable lifestyles that depend on burning fossil fuels”. And delay taking the necessary measures until science comes up with a miracle solution that doesn’t cost much at some point in the future, ideally well after the current country management teams have retired.

This approach won’t work unfortunately. The problem is more challenging than this. Because the root cause of the issue is the increasing level of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere, the problem keeps getting worse the longer we allow emissions to continue. Delaying action is really not an option. Moreover, the climate change problem is country agnostic. Its impacts are and will continue to be global in scope and nature, irrespective of the location of the country or countries that generated the GHG and so contributed (or not) to the magnitude of the problem. Plus the hoped for “miracle solution from science and technology will most likely never eventuate.

A substantial portion of our “lifestyle” lifecycle costs will manifest themselves as environmental events, with very significant costs, that will occur all over the world. A cruel reality of the effects of climate change is that countries that have contributed the least in the way of GHG emissions will likely suffer the strongest impacts and may have the least resources to respond. For example in our Pacific neighbourhood, where low-lying islands have very little room - literally - to adapt to the impacts of sea level rise.

Accepting responsibility for a “fair share” of historic GHG emissions - or not.

Collectively and from an international policy perspective, this issue has been recognised and the concept of social justice has generally been agreed to in principle. This means that developed countries would recognise and pay what is determined to be their “fair share” of the environmental damages that their cumulative GHG emissions have caused and will cause in future. They also, in principle, agree to a more rapid emissions reduction trajectory than is expected of the “developing” and “less developed” counties that have cumulatively contributed much less to the climate change problem.

The “fair share” arena is, however, not one that New Zealand has performed well in to date. The independent and respected Climate Action Tracker site rates our “fair share” emission reduction efforts to date as “Insufficient” noting that (as of March 2023) New Zealand’s NDC(1) “target for 2030 target equates to around 51 MtCO2e/yr excluding LULUCF” and “A fair share target would require New Zealand to nearly halve this target to 32 MtCO2e/yr by 2030, and commit to additional financial support for emissions reductions achieved in developing countries.”

New Zealand is not alone in this shortcoming. For entirely understandable reasons - the highly industrialized countries, collectively, being the most economically and militarily powerful bloc in the world - the implementation of this process has run into problems, with pledges to the UNFCC ”loss and damage fund” totaling, in January 2025, USD 741 million or ~0.2% of the irreversible losses that developing countries are facing every year from global heating.

There are four considerations I think we need to keep in mind around the issue of climate change.

The first consideration should be no surprise to any student of real-world politics; national self-interest (including, in the political arena, electoral survival) can and often does, trump any other factors.

New Zealand is one of a group of developed (and to a lesser extent, developing) countries responsible for the majority of cumulative GHG emissions.

New Zealand is a very small country with a relatively insignificant level of global GHG emissions but nevertheless is a developed country in economic terms and has been generating GHG, and benefiting from this, for a considerable period of time. Per head of population, New Zealanders are right up there in terms of their GHG emissions. This presents New Zealand with a challenging situation to navigate in terms of externalities and, specifically, how the world views us and our emission reduction efforts and positioning around this.

New Zealand has developed the way it has is due in large part to its temperate climate, its location, a low population density and the fact that it was its colonized by Britain - a then global superpower. This occurred with no knowledge of climate change which, until recently, hasn’t been a consideration in New Zealand’s development.

New Zealanders have however benefited hugely, over a long period of time, from the lifestyle and convenience that a heavy reliance on burning fossil fuels brings. This has included, for the last century or so, driving cars and other vehicles (generating carbon dioxide) and the development of industrial-scale sheep, beef and dairy farming (with its attendant generation of methane), activities which continue to this day.

That New Zealand is classified as a developed country, with its attendant GHG emissions history, is beyond dispute. We therefore have a moral responsibility to do more than the minimum in terms of emission reductions (and the trajectory of this pathway). This is the second consideration.

New Zealand is a global citizen and, regionally, part of the wider Pacific community

We are also a very small country that, economically, is very much exposed to the winds of international trade. In our dealings with the rest of the world we place significant value on our reputation as a global citizen, presumably both because it is the principled thing to do and because this position serves our interests. We are committed to addressing climate change via mechanisms such as the Paris Agreement. New Zealand also recognises that our future lies in the Pacific and values the relationships we have with our Pacific neighbours. This is the third consideration.

Free Trade Agreements

More pragmatically, many of the countries that New Zealand trades with and which provide our economic lifeblood are increasingly recognizing the importance of climate change. As a result, the two most recent Free Trade Agreements we have entered into (with the United Kingdom in 2023 and the European Union in 2024) both contain commitments to address climate change and to implement the Paris Agreement.

Should our trading partners meet the climate change related commitments in the FTA’s and we do not, this potentially leaves New Zealand exposed to trade sanctions (with the associated reputational risks this would entail). This is the fourth consideration.

The actions that are necessary

Taking these considerations into account, is my view that, “it’s the putting right that counts” is an entirely appropriate philosophy for New Zealand to take when it comes to addressing climate change. The New Zealand Government - and New Zealanders -should, therefore take the actions necessary to give effect to it by:

1. Accepting that New Zealand both has been and continues to be, one of a number of the minority of countries in the world who have significantly contributed to the climate change crisis that the world now faces and that the global impacts from this will hugely disadvantage many of the world’s poorest people including our Pacific neighbours.

2. Accepting that the world has a very narrow window (10 years or less ) to act decisively to reduce emissions and so minimise the huge impacts that will otherwise result from the climate change process that we humans have set running.

3. Accepting that the current NZ position (i.e. only taking action to address climate change as long as it doesn’t impact, inconvenience or cost New Zealanders much), is no longer tenable or appropriate for a country that positions itself as a good global and citizen and Pacific neighbour.

4. The Government providing the funding for, and ensuring the delivery of, the vital conversation that must start to take place in the public arena. This is essential if New Zealanders are to become informed about the climate change issues we face; the costs, the options and the consequences of our choices, both for us and for subsequent generations of New Zealanders.

Some people will, with some justification, argue that it isn’t fair that NZ could, or should, be potentially singled out for doing something (or more accurately not doing something) that other countries are also (not) doing. This is an admirable and principled, position to take - and one that I am sure our Pacific neighbours would be happy to support, just as soon as they have got their sea level rise-driven relocation to their new countries sorted. WAIT - let me restate that ….

David Burt