Climate crisis update

[As published in September/October BayBuzz magazine.]

As usual, we look at the latest evolution of climate crisis issues from planet scale to here in Hawke’s Bay, including the latest polling results on how well New Zealanders believe we are coping with climate change.

The planet

If there’s any surprise here, it is the pace of global warming intensification. We’re on a record hot streak. As I write, 22 July was the hottest day in recorded history globally, at 17.15C – the third time that month the previous record was surpassed. The planet has set heat records for 13 straight months. In the last days of July, more that 1,600 places around the globe had tied or broken heat records. Oceans have been breaking heat records for 15 consecutive months.

A recent UN Report estimates 2.4 billion workers are exposed to excessive heat, resulting in 22.8 million non-fatal injuries and 18,970 deaths annually. A World Economic Forum report noted that 62,000 deaths were attributed to the European heatwave between May and September 2022. In the US, health and safety rules are now being considered to protect workers from working in unsafe heat conditions.

The effect of this steady rising temperature is that we have now have had increases at or above the 1.5C target that has been internationally accepted as the threshold for avoiding the worst effects of climate change.

Experts at climate monitor NASA in the US estimate that about three-quarters of all global agricultural land is vulnerable to substantial climate disruptions.

An opinion piece in the NY Times recently observed:

“Farming may look intuitively like a climate-friendly undertaking, but it remains a stubborn carbon problem — and now looks increasingly likely to outlast the other, more obvious parts of the decarbonization challenge. 

“We have long conceptualized climate change as an industrial crisis, to be solved through a new and green industrial revolution. But in a few decades, we may find ourselves having solved the industrial problems of warming, only to be confronted instead by a persistent set of challenges that seem pre-modern by comparison — how to extract more calories from less land and how to do so without bankrupting the earth and its soils along the way.”

That’s the big picture. Where does New Zealand fit in as a primary production economy?

New Zealand

The latest figures from Stats NZ show a 0.5% increase in emissions in the year to March 2024, the first annual rise since 2019.

But the government seems determined to avoid biting the bullet on emissions, particularly with respect to farm and transportation emissions.

It has ended ‘clean car’ purchase incentives, effectively halting what was impressive growth in EV sales, while also reducing fuel efficiency standards. And it has stretched the timetable for mandating farm emissions pricing or reductions.

Moreover, the government is pressing to reinstate new offshore oil and gas exploration, in direct contradiction of UN and International Energy Agency policy preferences. The ban reversal would load an additional 14.2 million tonnes of emissions into the emissions budgets stretching out to 2035. 

Meanwhile, the NZ science community is alarmed that staff cuts at NIWA and GNS, both critically involved in understanding NZ’s future climate scenarios, will cripple that essential prediction work, from heat and rainfall to coastal and river flooding impacts.

As required by the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Act, the government recently issued for consultation its proposed Emissions Reduction Plan for the 2026-30 window. The plan would allow more emissions than the previous government’s proposal and would miss NZ’s legislatively-set net zero commitments for 2035 and 2050.

Its plan bets entirely on a “technology-led approach” says Climate Minister Simon Watts, backed by heavy reliance on forestry offsets under a revised Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). The government says it wants to encourage much greater private investment in emissions reduction in areas like renewables and carbon capture (i.e., direct removal and storage of carbon emissions).

Meantime, the Climate Change Commission has released its first monitoring report since the Zero Carbon Act came into effect.

The report is critical of the government’s climate policies and strategies, citing an over-reliance on the Emissions Trading Scheme and forestry offsets as opposed to reductions in emissions at their source, “a failure to adopt adequate transport emissions reductions policies”, and insufficient cuts in agricultural emissions. It also notes concern as to whether NZ would be on track to meet its emission reduction commitments under the Paris Agreement.

Commission Chair Dr Rod Carr comments: “The areas that could have the biggest impact for driving down emissions are in decarbonising electricity supply, decarbonising industry, reducing on-farm emissions, adopting low and zero-emissions vehicles, and land use change to forestry.”

In case NZ farmers think they’re being pressed too hard, they should consider Denmark, where agriculture will contribute a 40% share of emissions in 2030. Denmark devotes 61% of its 40 thousand km2 to agriculture, while NZ devotes 50% of 263 thousand km2 square kilometers; but Denmark’s GDP is 61% higher. 

Denmark has a legally binding 2030 target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 70% from 1990 levels. There, farm emissions will be taxed at around NZ$70 per tonne of emissions from 2030. They’ll get a 60% tax credit against the payments, which will be used to support farmers’ emissions reduction efforts. 

Emissions reductions aside, recommendations are soon expected on climate adaptation. On 5 September, the Parliamentary Finance and Expenditure Joint Committee is expected to recommend strategies for mitigating the impact of climate change, including coastal protection and retreat, and the funding of such measures.

Meantime, the NZ Climate Commission in August gave its assessment of NZ climate adaptation planning to date, which it termed “insufficiently addressed”. “The Commission finds limited evidence that the first national adaptation plan is driving adaptation at the scale or pace needed.” Chair Dr Rod Carr urged much greater urgency: “It’s never too late to start, and the sooner we do, the more money we will save and the more heartache we will avoid. It can provide great returns on investment that last a long time.”

Heavyweight business players like the Sustainable Business Council and the Climate Leaders Coalition argue for gross emissions reductions, not just offsets, and above all policy/regulatory certainty. Instead what looks likely is major uncertainty, as this government backtracks on Labour initiatives that Labour promises to restore at its next opportunity.

What does the New Zealand public think about all this?

A major survey was recently completed by Ipsos for the NZ insurance industry.

Fully 72% of respondents said climate change was an important issue to them personally, with 61% saying they have become more concerned in recent years.

And 83% say the government is responsible for action on climate change, with 54% saying they are most responsible (as compared to local government, business, or individuals). However, only 32% say NZ’s response to climate is on the right track – 27% say actions the government has taken are good; 40% say poor.

Hawke’s Bay

Several of the questions in the Ipsos survey (and the Commission’s findings) raise issues of consequence to our region.

Although 68% of respondents say local governments are responsible for action on climate change, only 3% say they are most responsible.

That said, the survey indicates a number of key actions by local councils are strongly supported:

• 85% support requiring new buildings to meet higher resilience standards;

• 83% say councils should continually improve their and their community’s understanding of climate hazards;

• 82% say councils should only plan to use land recognised as being of low risk of climate hazards for housing developments;

• 78% support councils using funds to help build infrastructure that reduces the impact of climate hazards.

These are issues now on the table in Hawke’s Bay. 

The Napier-Hastings Future Development Strategy, negotiated by NCC, HDC and the Regional Council, will soon be presented for public consultation. This strategy will indicate where the 16,320 additional homes (as well as 230 hectares for commercial and industrial expansion) required over the next 30 years will be located. Presumably climate risk will be a factor.

Likewise, the Coastal Protection Strategy, in development for years by the same three councils, is finally coming to a head. From Clifton to Tangoio a range of options from natural protection to hard engineering to managed retreat have been devised and provisionally priced. This strategy, including who will pay, will also require public consultation, scheduled for early 2025.

Of course the Regional Council would note that much of its planned work is in large part addressing climate change, most notably enhanced flood protection and Land for Life (which envisions substantial tree cover).

Finally, we have the Joint Committee on Climate Action, representing our five councils and iwi. As of its 26 August meeting, the committee is chaired by HBRC Councillor Xan Harding (formerly by HBRC Chair Hinewai Ormsby) and has been slowly developing sector by sector recommendations for both emissions mitigation and climate impact adaptation. It would do well to embrace the Climate Commission’s adaptation report (available here).

With a budget slightly over $600,000 for the next three years, the committee recently endorsed workstreams addressing regional risk assessment (given highest priority and about ten years overdue), identifying and ‘enabling’ local climate action, community knowledge building and monitoring regional progress.

HBRC’s chief staffer supporting this work is newly appointed Amberley Gibson, Climate Change Lead Strategic Adviser, who has worked previously on climate issues at the Ministry for the Environment. Not a ‘Climate Ambassador’, this role is more internally focussed. Hopefully it involves managing actual projects as opposed to simply preparing Joint Committee paperwork. We’ll see at the 24 November meeting of the Joint Committee.