Environment Minister David Parker said the report showed why reform was necessary. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Environment Minister David Parker said the report showed why reform was necessary. Photo / Mark Mitchell
The Infrastructure Commission, Te Waihanga, has warned that New Zealand’s broken consenting system could see the country missing crucial emissions reduction goals and land the country with an emissions liability of up to $16 billion unless it isn’t fixed.
The commission is involved with those reforms but warns that, even with reform, the sclerotic and expensive consenting system may frustrate emissions-reduction ambitions because it will simply take too long and cost too much to get emissions-reducing infrastructure consented.
The research was commissioned by the Infrastructure Commission and developed by Sapere Research Group and modelled consenting costs and consenting timeframes for climate-related infrastructure in the energy and transport sectors.
The research looked at the problems faced by large energy and transport projects to get resource consent, warning that this process was becoming more lengthy and costly. At a certain point, the report warned, consenting gets so expensive and slow that it is no longer worth bothering with and projects simply don’t get built.
“At some point, there is a pragmatic threshold of consent processing time, beyond which certain projects become unfeasible and are no longer pursued by investors,” the report warned.
It warned that if this threshold were reached, it would trigger a scenario “where 29–34 per cent of emissions targets are in jeopardy due to consenting constraints and delays”.
On the current trajectory, New Zealand was on track to “miss between 11-15 per cent of the emission reductions required from the energy and transport sectors by 2050 due to consenting delays (even under optimistic scenarios with unconstrained consenting resources)”, the report warned.
This would attract an emissions liability of between $13b and $16b by 2050.
However, on different scenarios and without this threshold, the report reckoned the country was still “on track to incur an emissions liability of between $5b and $7b by 2050″, it said.
The report modelled scenarios where resource management reform improved delays and costs. This significantly slows cost and time escalation.
The report reckoned that for the country to meet its net zero 2050 target, the resource management reforms “will need to be fully operational by 2028″.
“From 2028, a 50 per cent reduction in projected consent processing times will be required,” the report said.
This is at odds with the current timeframe for the reforms, which envisages the new system rolling out region-by-region over a period of a decade.
The report warned the hour was late. Emissions must soon peak, and then gradually fall. But for that to happen, the infrastructure that allows us to reduce those emissions must be consented and built soon - it can’t be built only a few years out from the 2050 target.
Environment Minister David Parker, who is leading the RMA reforms said the report “underscores why we are making the changes to the Resource Management system – because at the moment it takes too long, costs too much and is not protecting the environment, and slows down necessary infrastructure and housing development”.
“We are confident that the reform will reduce time and costs in the provision of infrastructure.
“Various reports, including this one and the upcoming report from the System Efficiency Working Group, are being considered during the Select committee process and are part of the transparent process to improve the legislation,” he said.
Parker said that that “efficiencies from designations and consenting will come into effect from 2030″.
Chris Bishop said the Government's RMA reforms would not fix the problem. Photo / Mark Mitchell
“The infrastructure provisions and standards in the NPF [National Planning Framework - a new set of standards that will underpin the reforms], which are being developed by Te Waihanga, will help to make consenting more efficient and less costly by providing national direction on this (that hasn’t been provided under the RMA) and reducing the need for bespoke consent conditions that can take time and cost to develop,” Parker said.
National and Act said the report was damning of the Government’s reforms - and not just the status quo.
National’s Chris Bishop said the report should be a “giant wake-up call for Labour on their failing RMA reforms”.
“Rather than fix this massive problem, Labour’s RMA 2.0 makes things worse,” Bishop said.
“Contact Energy says the new bills are the ‘single biggest threat’ to new renewables and decarbonisation.
“The Wind Energy Association has said Labour’s replacement will only make consenting wind farms harder, and the Electricity Sector Environment Group have described the new laws as ‘unworkable’.
“Labour has decided to double-down on the RMA and after five years of work has managed to produce new laws that will make things worse, not better,” he said.
Act’s Simon Court said the Government needed “to slice through the Gordian Knot of the RMA, and it needs to do so soon. It is clear that the Government’s proposed RMA reforms fall far short of what is needed if New Zealand is to have the slightest hope of meeting its emissions targets.”
