The Green Party wants to “invite more public discussion” about the idea using Reserve Bank-style “teeth” to force the Government into reducing New Zealand’s emissions and meeting its climate goals, co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said today.
She made her remarks after questions about Treasury’s verdict on the Government’s ability to meet its obligations under the Paris Agreement.
The Government is not on track to reduce its emissions sufficiently to meet the first Paris goal, which means it will need “sizeable offshore” purchases of carbon credits to reach the goal, according to Treasury’s Budget Economic and Fiscal Update. The Government has repeatedly said it will not be purchasing offshore carbon credits.
“It is likely that meeting this target would involve significant costs, starting within the current fiscal forecast period,” Treasury said in its commentary.
Governments have known for more than a decade that offshore carbon credit purchases would likely be required to hit the first Paris emissions reduction goal.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis said the Government intended to meet its international climate obligations and attacked as unrealistic the 2030 Paris target, which was set by the Key Government but strengthened under the Ardern Government by then-Climate Change Minister James Shaw.
Asked about those numbers today, Swarbrick recalled a speech she gave during a debate on the Zero Carbon Bill in 2019 that went viral due to her use of the phrase “Okay boomer” to respond to an interjection.
She said the more important part of the speech was her questioning the lack of powers given to organisations like the Climate Change Commission, created by the Zero Carbon Act.
“The point I was making in that speech was that if we were to have an independent expert body that didn’t have teeth in it, that didn’t have the ability to actually meaningfully hold the Government accountable ... then that accountability is really hard to make happen in reality,” Swarbrick said.
“We have the likes of the Reserve Bank that has independence to set our monetary policy independent of politicians on the basis that politicians tend not to be particularly well versed or skilled when it comes to economics, but we seem to accept that politicians know about climate science when it comes to setting our carbon budgets,” Swarbrick said.
Asked whether the Greens supported giving the Climate Change Commission greater powers to force governments to adopt its emissions-reducing recommendations – powers akin to the Reserve Bank’s powers to fight inflation – Swarbrick said “it’s definitely something we’ve talked about in the past and it’s something we should invite more public discussion on”.
NZ First leader Winston Peters has long claimed his party stopped the Climate Change Commission from having Reserve Bank-style powers, although this has not been confirmed by other parties in that Government.
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