New Zealand Climate Crisis: No 14
NEW ZEALAND: A “CLIMATE CAN”, A “CLIMATE CAN’T”, A “CLAYTON’S CLIMATE CHANGE” OR A “CLIMATE CALAMITY” COUNTRY?
[2000 words - an 8 minute read]
This blog is the Conclusion section taken from a longer Background Article on the subject that can be found here
The current general election (voting opened on Monday 26th October and closes on Saturday 7th November) will see New Zealand voters choose the parties that will lead the country for the next three years
As is usual in a democracy, voters have a number of choices, both as to the issues that are important to them and the political party (or parties) they believe are most able and willing to support their ideology or worldview and address their problems
One of the most important issue facing New Zealand businesses and communities (and one that will rapidly increase further in importance in both the near term and further out) is climate change and the election provides us with an opportunity to elect politicians who are willing to lead New Zealand in addressing climate change.
The parameters of the climate change crisis that we are facing are both well established and simple to understand:
The cause of the problem is that, since the start of the Industrial Revolution, human activities such as industrial scale farming and, especially the burning of fossil fuels (coal, gas , oil) have pumped ever increasing amounts of certain gases (primarily carbon dioxide and methane) into the atmosphere.
These gases - known as greenhouses gases (GHG) - at the levels we have generated, have changed the physico-chemical, planetary level systems that had for millions of years previously kept the Earth’s surface temperature relatively stable, a condition critical to our species development.
As a consequence, the surface temperature of the planet, on we live and depend, has increased by ~1.5°C from pre-industrial levels to date and will increase further - likely to reach~2.6°C by 2100 on current projections.
This level of temperature increase is well above the 1.5°C target that would have minimised climate change impacts on communities, business and the ecosystems that we depend on.
The solutions to the problem have been known about now for some decades; reduce emissions to minimise future damage and take measures to adapt to the impacts that cannot be avoided - such as a certain level of sea level rise.
There has been some positive news; over the last decade or so the world has taken some steps towards emissions reduction and so has acted to avoid what would, if no actions were taken, have been a catastrophic 5°C temperature increase.
While almost every country in the world signed up to an agreement (the “Paris Agreement”) to address climate change and so hold the global temperature increase to 1.5°C (or 2°C at most) via a series of 5-yearly, progressively more ambitious emission reduction measures (“Nationally Determined Contributions” or “NDC’s”) in 2015/16, they - and we - have failed to deliver on their commitments, leaving the world to live with a situation where the 1.5°C target will be “overshot” - reaching ~2.6°C as noted above - and with increasingly ambitious targets needing to be met in order to recover this goal by the end of the century.
Complicating matters is the fact that our inability to effectively address the issue of climate change has meant that its impacts continue to grow. While many impacts are obvious to the people affected - such as the additional ~50,000 deaths in Europe this year[1] attributed to climate change exacerbated heatwaves this year, the complexity and number of the processes involved has meant that many other impacts are visible primarily to scientists monitoring planetary vital signs. Their conclusion published this month is that “We are witnessing the rapid destabilization of the Earth’s climate system. This is no longer a warning for the future; it is a diagnosis of the present. Earth’s life-support systems are being pushed beyond stable limits, with changes unfolding faster than our ability to respond.”[2]
The reason for our collective failure in this area is quite simple; it is a lack of leadership, both globally and locally. In times of crisis, we need our leaders to step up and take the actions that are right for the future of the country and who are not beholden to the latest poll results and limited by the three-yearly electoral cycle . This is particularly important for “long problems” such as climate change where the cause and effects stretch across more than one generation
Addressing climate change in this light is not only important for the NZ we want to live in now and in the near future but, given the time frames involved, even more so for the future New Zealand that we want for our children, grand-children and their descendants.
If we choose not to implement the known solutions we should, at least, be honest with our (grand)children and tell them that we couldn’t be bothered to do what is needed to secure a liveable, future world for them to enjoy. They can do this work instead and pay for it - as well as suffering the increasing consequences of our failure to act.
This brings us to the current situation and the imperative, in my view, to elect leaders with the resolve, commitment and courage needed to address the issue of climate change.
The first consideration is to understand where we as a country, are now when it comes to addressing climate change?
The magnitude of the challenge we face - and the implications for us humans continuing to not adequately recognise the increasing danger it poses - has been brought sharply into focus by two recent publications.
The first is the globally focused United Nations Environment Programme. In a number of publications over the past few years this organisation has tracked the increasing magnitude of the challenge that the world faces as a direct consequence of our failure - some would say obstinacy or even stupidity - to address the issue of climate change.
Their latest work is no different “Emission Gap Report 2026: The Point of Return” published on 26th October this year. This work, while reiterating that an overshoot (of the 1.5C target that is now inevitable) is not surrender, also lays out the magnitude of the challenge we face.
Globally, we must slash global greenhouse gas emissions by 18% by 2030, 45% by 2035 and 69% by 2040 (from 2025 levels) to bring temperatures back down to 1.5°C by the end of this century[3]. This level of emissions reduction is far greater than current global Nationally Determined Contributions (i.e. planned emission reductions) will deliver; estimated to be 5-8% by 2030 and 11-15% by 2035, — with the world consequently on track to reach 2.6 - 2.8°C warming, (with the devastating impacts, to us and other species, this will cause) by 2100[4]
The second is a New Zealand level publication; a pre-election briefing by the respected Climate Action Tracker published on 29th October this year. This organisation noted that,, by any international comparison, the list of climate policy rollbacks and reversals carried out by the New Zealand government over the past three years is staggering.[5]
The current Government, with a myopic focus on the short-term (combined with a desperate, and likely futile hope, that the market will rescue the situation) standing in for leadership on climate change, has rolled back many initiatives designed to reduce our emissions From a robust emissions reduction perspective to even call the strategy “threadbare” would be to overstate it - “the emperor has no clothes” would be more accurate, but that is a story for another day.
Their actions have been so profoundly lacking that, with tongue firmly in cheek, they deserve a number of awards - the She’ll Be Right Awards for Climate Inaction, specifically :
The Homer Simpson “Trying is the first step towards failure” award [For inadequate emission reduction ambitions
The Humpty Dumpty "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less" award [For setting Paris Agreement emission reduction targets that significantly overstate the actual level of net emissions reductions being undertaken
The Milton Freidman “Every man for himself and the Devil take the hindmost” award. [For inadequate practical recognition of “fair share” contributions to international climate finance initiatives and the broader underlying concept of climate justice
The Marie-Antionette “Having our cake, eating it but not wanting to pay for it” award [For accepting that the failure to align our Paris Agreement NDC 2[6] commitment (due to be redeemed in 2030) with the relevant domestic emission budget/s will require New Zealand to pay a substantial sum in off-shore mitigation costs but refusing to commit to this expenditure, an issue with potentially significant trade and other international implications.]
The Old MacDonald “Burpee” award. [For promoting and enabling the pastoral sector to transfer the unmitigated climate costs of the methane - produced by their cows, cattle and sheep - onto taxpayers.]
The Johnny Appleseed “Making us pine for a low emissions future” award [For mortgaging the country’s future by choosing to plant pinus radiata forests in perpetuity to reduce gross emissions rather than effectively tackle point source GHG emissions.]
The Scrooge McDuck “Penny wise pound foolish” award [For its simplistic and misleading ‘least cost’ approach to climate change.]
The Lord Nelson “Refusing to see what’s actually happening” award [For ignoring the climate change science that is highlighting the increasingly perilous state the world is in.]
The second consideration is the climate change offerings from some of the parties contesting the election
My assessment criterion is, broadly, whether or not the proposed policies and actions are likely to comply with the spirit of the Paris Agreement, taken as a proxy for the necessary commitment of resources to acheive this and to enable the steps needed towards a successful transition to a low emissions economy.
The categories are:
§ “Climate Can”: The measures have the potential to deliver the needed [Paris Agreement compatible carbon mitigation actions together with adequate adaptation related actions] climate outcomes.
§ “Climate Can’t”: The measures will not deliver the needed climate outcomes that are needed.
§ “Clayton’s Climate Change”: Measures sold as delivering the needed climate outcomes but will not do so
§ “Climate Calamity”: Measures that will deliver a worse outcome than the current “Highly Insufficient” [New Zealand | Climate Action Tracker] suite of actions being undertaken or planned in New Zealand.
My take on the climate outcome is below:
Assessed climate outcome of the 2026 climate related policies of some NZ political parties
POLITICAL PARTY AND LIKELY OUTCOME:
ACT New Zealand: Climate Calamity
Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand: Climate Can
New Zealand First: Climate Calamity
New Zealand Labour Party: Climate Can’t
New Zealand National Party: Claytons Climate Change
Opportunity Party: Climate Can
Te Pāti Māori: Climate Can
In the absence of the necessary leadership from our elected government, it is up to us as voters to make the choices that will help ensure our children and grandchildren have the country they deserve to live in.
The choice is yours.
[1] Barnes C et al, Grantham Institute - Climate Change and the Environment, “Heat-related urban mortality attributable to human-induced climate change in Europe in summer 2026”, October 2026. https://www.imperial.ac.uk/grantham/publications/all-publications/heat-related-urban-mortality-attributable-to-human-induced-climate-change-in-europe-in-summer-2026.php
[2] Ripple W.J, et al “The 2026 state of the climate report: challenges and opportunities” in BioScience, 2026, Volume 0, Issue 0 Special Report, 14th October 2026. https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biag125
[3] Characterized by limiting peak warming to 1.7–1.8°C with 66 per cent chance and returning global mean temperatures to or below 1.5°C by 2100 with around a 50 per cent chance [From Footnote #4].
[4] United Nations Environment Programme.” Emissions Gap Report 2026” https://wedocs.unep.org/items/87c02cac-8da8-4c28-ba61-c846ee68ea70
[5] Climate Action Tracker. New Zealand: three years of systematic climate policy rollbacks October 2026. Climate Action Tracker | New Zealand: three years of systematic climate policy rollbacks - Oct 2026
[6] See Foot note #4 for nomenclature
