NZ's emissions target for 2020 - framing the discussion

[Nick Potter]

This week NZ's government begins consulting on a greenhouse gas emissions reduction target for 2020. NZ is one of the last developed countries to set this target, in preparation for the international climate change negotiations at Copenhagen this year.

The government brochure for this consultation frames the conversation this way: should NZ aim for a modest target or an ambitious one? It comments that "We need to balance [i.e. trade-off] the need to make progress in reducing emissions to protect the environment with the impacts on jobs, investments and costs to consumers." This way of thinking immediately creates a divide. The likely outcome is that the government will set a target somewhere in the middle of "modest" and "ambitious'", which they will call "realistic", to displease everyone equally.

A more constructive question would be "how can NZ set a globally-responsible target, which we can achieve through improving our economy and way of life?" As the most recent scientific evidence highlights, global warming is now accelerating towards the upper boundaries of projections by the IPCC. As climate change will hit the world's poorest the hardest, this is a slow-burning humanitarian crisis. There is growing consensus that developed countries need to commit to an emissions reduction target of at least 40% by 2020. New Zealand needs to decide on a "fair" domestic target, which is no easy task, but this report from Oxfam (see Oxfam.pdf) suggests that NZ's target should be very close to 40%. 350 Climate Action and Greenpeace are calling for a 40% reduction by 2020 too. Yes, this is a very, very challenging target. But the New Zealand I want to know and love is a courageous country that takes the higher ground on humanitarian and environmental issues. And what happened to our 'number 8 wire' mentality - the belief that we can creatively craft our way through adversity and be better off for it?

This article in World Changing also makes timely reading. It's worth quoting in length:

"A sort of generation gap on global issues is emerging around the pace of change. The older generation, especially the older generation of well-heeled white men, today respond to our calls for rapid change by urging "realism" - meaning an expectation of delayed action and minimal commitment. We saw this most recently in the U.S. debate about the Waxman-Markey climate bill... Clear thinking people - and at this moment, polls show, most of us tend to be on the younger side - get that we do not have decades to act. We hear the clock ticking...

We here in the developed world need to not only redesign our lives to reduce our own impact; we need to reinvent prosperity itself, so that billions of people around the world can take the innovations we create and make their own versions of sustainable prosperity....We must also do it quickly. We need to do it yesterday...

Here's the good news: We can build that bright green future. We have the technological prowess, the design insight and even many of the working examples we need to transform our systems and reinvent our cities...

Here's the better news: Not only can we build it, but we'll be better off when we live in it. We will be better off in a stable world than a collapsing one, rather obviously. (It is a monumental failure of our public debate that our choices are still understood as an option between "going green" and the status quo; when in fact they are transformation or imminent ruin.) But most of the evidence indicates that we will be better off in a bright green future than we are now in our dark gray present: better off in crass material terms, with more disposable income, more comfortable homes, nicer communities and better food, but also better off in terms of quality of life, health, time demands and stress. What we gain outweighs what we lose, by far. Put simply, I believe that in almost every way a bright green future would be a better choice than the status quo, even if there were no planetary crisis at all."

Regardless of what we want to call the future we aspire to - "bright green", "blue green" or maybe even "aqua", the message is the same - now's the time to make a leap together. Scotland has already shown us what leadership looks like - they just committed to a legally-binding target of 42% by 2020.

As my old friend Goethe once said: "Divide and rule, a sound motto. Unite and lead, a better one."

[Patrick Morgan]

Nice job at the 40 by 2020 consultation Nick. A tidy demonstration of the audience's mood for bold and responsible carbon reduction targets.

[paul bruce]

Hi Nick,

Great comment. Indeed we can do a lot to improve our way of life, reduce carbon emissions freely, create more useful time for ourselves, get more exercise, have more social time, connect more with our community....etc but if you would really like to get a sense of urgency, of why we should change, check out http://bit.ly/8gi9x

[Gareth]

Hi Nick, would you be happy if could we post this to the Sign On blog?

http://www.signon.org.nz/news