There’s a scent around the Beehive. Could it be the odour of ever-increasing carbon dioxide? The level of that gas continues to break records, according to measurement stations at Baring Head off the Wainuiomata coast and in Hawai’i. But carbon dioxide is odourless. The whiff, it seems, is of decay in the government’s enthusiasm to limit climate change.
Perhaps physics is too woke, particularly the physical reality that carbon dioxide emissions directly increase the amount of energy trapped in Earth’s atmosphere. New Zealand First’s Shane Jones wrote on Facebook in November that, “We’re not going to be guilt-tripped by these fanciful accounts that the planet is boiling.” In March, he posted: “Of course I’m not a climate denier.”
Instead, ministers give the impression that economic growth precludes reducing emissions. In Parliament last month, the Prime Minister repeatedly refused to confirm his commitment to New Zealand meeting its emissions-reduction pledge under the Paris Agreement. When questioned, he responded, “What we’re committed to doing is going incredibly hard on economic growth.” Act’s David Seymour and NZ First’s Winston Peters have suggested reconsidering whether to be part of the agreement.
Meanwhile, New Zealand has been quietly making progress when it comes to one of the main sources of greenhouse gases: energy use. Robert McLachlan, professor of applied mathematics at Massey University, has crunched numbers from the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE)’s “Energy in New Zealand 2024″ report. They show energy use has dropped by nearly 10% since it peaked in 2017. Even more remarkably, energy use per person has steadily declined since 2001 and is now 28% lower. Yet our per-person real GDP grew by 38% in that time.
There’s ample proof economies can grow even as emissions decline. From 2015-22, global GDP grew by 22% while emissions grew by only 7%. The OECD reports that more than 40 countries lifted GDP while cutting emissions, and that well-designed climate policies can deliver stronger economic growth than business-as-usual pathways.
Christina Hood, climate and energy expert at at consultancy Compass Climate, agrees. “If we invest in clean things, we can get better economic growth, she says. “There’s also the flipside, which is that if we keep burning fossil fuels, it causes damage to the global economy and to New Zealand because we have more climate disasters to clean up.
“Other climate impacts like excess heat and crop damage affect productivity and inflation. So a good chunk of the growth we think we’re getting today through fossil fuels ends up being illusory.”
She points to $95 billion worth of fuel savings by 2040 if household heating, hot water, cooking and cars are electrified, according to calculations from Rewiring Aotearoa, a climate and energy charity. “That would have huge, positive macroeconomic knock-ons for New Zealand’s balance of payments and productivity,” she says.
Already, renewables generate an ever-increasing proportion of our energy. They have boomed, not coincidentally, since the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act was passed in 2019. New projects that would more than treble current renewable generation are planned, according to the Electricity Authority’s “Investment Pipeline” website.
But to press “go”, developers need to know demand will be there. Such demand comes from phasing out fossil fuel.
But there’s that odour. Predictions by MBIE state that resuming offshore oil and gas exploration and mining “is expected to lead to a substantial increase in emissions … largely from prolonged gas usage in the electricity, commercial and industrial sectors.”
