This will be a big year in climate negotiations. There is an expectation that the Paris conference in December will deliver a climate deal that will have some sort of legal force, though just what this means is still undecided.
What New Zealand should do—and specifically what our post 20-20 climate change contribution should be—is the focus of consultation being conducted at the moment by the Ministry for the Environment.
As evidenced by a recent opinion piece in these pages, Europe claims leadership on climate issues. Some of that is real, and some is opportunism—the function of declining North Sea reserves; the closure of heavy industries; the fall of the iron curtain and so on. While there are certainly ways in which they are leaders, they are also solving a slightly different problem than the one in front of low fossil electricity, largely agricultural New Zealand.
But despite our size, there are ways in which New Zealand can lead. New Zealand has made a well-received proposal that countries submit a “schedule”—a commitment to reduce or manage emissions, as well as accounting, review and updating provisions—that is legally binding under domestic law but not under international law. It is an innovative and promising way of trying to break some longstanding barriers to action on climate change.
Generally speaking, three things determine the effectiveness of a climate treaty: stringency, compliance and participation. Legal form matters for compliance, and—if the New Zealand proposal is accepted—the expectation that all countries will offer some sort of contribution towards mitigating climate change is an important step towards stronger participation.
But to be effective, there also needs to be an element of stringency.
There is already an agreed aim of keeping warming at or below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Criticism of this target, for being too remote from policy and rather arbitrary, can be addressed in part by creating supplementary targets.
The most obvious choice would be global net zero emissions of carbon dioxide by around 2100. It is now well-established that you don’t stop the warming until after you stop emitting carbon dioxide and other long-lived species such as nitrous oxide.
But while global net zero emissions is a necessary condition it is not a sufficient one – other nearer-term considerations also matter. First of all, at some point global emissions will peak and if that can happen in the next few decades, before declining gradually to net zero in the second half of the century, then it ought to be possible to cap the warming at some reasonable level.
The timing of global peak emissions matters less than its magnitude. This will mainly be determined by the contributions of major developing countries, since these are by far the most significant source of emissions in the 21st Century.
Along with other more developed countries New Zealand is expected to reduce its emissions now. At present, a cut of 50% in emissions by 2050 is still gazetted as New Zealand’s target. Extending this to a target of net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2100 would be a valuable addition to the current plan.
Some environmentalists, particularly in Europe, will regard this as insufficient, arguing that developed countries should do much more before developing countries are obliged to do anything. To me, the idea that we should unilaterally set ourselves a really onerous target, irrespective of what other countries do, is naïve: this is a negotiation, not a charity event.
Even though I expect New Zealand’s contribution in terms of ideas to matter more in the long run than our contribution in terms of emissions, we still need a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years. An announcement that our long-term plan is to get to where the world needs to go – coupled with the proviso that we will look at doing even more if others join in – would be a nice move: it draws attention to a meaningful long-term target, and to the extent that a little country can, it provides an incentive for others to make similar commitments.