New Zealand will miss climate deadline by more than a year

CNN has called them the “Justice League” for climate change diplomacy - a bold group of nations leading the fight for a low-carbon future.

Last September, at the New York climate negotiations, New Zealand joined a coalition of countries promising to put their best feet forward by lodging their highest possible pledges for cutting emissions.

By handing in these pledges early - well in advance of the next major climate summit - the group of fifteen countries (including Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Costa Rica and Fiji) hoped to spur other countries to raise their own ambitions.

But an announcement last month made it clear New Zealand will miss the deadline - the first quarter of 2020 - by more than a year.

A QUIET CHANGE

The slipped deadline wasn't mentioned when Minister for Climate Change James Shaw said last month he had referred the question of New Zealand's pledge to the new Climate Change Commission.

The commission won't report back until May 2021 on whether the country needs to aim higher. The government will then decide whether to adopt the commission's recommendation.

READ MORE:
* Climate change: New Zealand's Paris pledge up for review
* Coronavirus: what does the UN summit delay mean for climate change?
* Powerful climate commissioners appointed, including Harry Clark and James Renwick

Under the Paris accord, every five years countries have to tell the United Nations how much they will do to help keep the world inside 1.5C-2 degrees Celsius of fossil-fuelled heating.

The current round of pledges is not enough to keep the globe inside that comparatively safe temperature zone. 2019 was the second hottest year on record, according to the World Meteorological Organisation.

Countries have the option of updating their self-imposed targets - called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) - at any time. But, once lodged, NDCs can only go higher. Countries can't opt to reduce their pledges.

Shaw said he hadn't received any backlash from other countries after referring New Zealand's Paris pledge to the Climate Change Commission. "Quite the opposite. The upcoming (climate summit) President, the United Kingdom, welcomed our approach to seeking advice from the Climate Change Commission," he said.

Those observing at home were generally supportive - but some campaigners warned there was a reputation risk.

“It seems like we've decided to hand in our homework late, but do a better job of it,” said climate campaigner David Tong, of Oil Change International. “That’s probably a good thing. I think there will be a measure of understanding, but it is critical that no other country uses New Zealand as a precedent to avoid putting in a target," he said. "If other countries use this as cover, our reputation will suffer.”

"Is New Zealand going to be named and shamed? I don't think so," said Victoria University adjunct professor Adrian Macey, a former lead climate negotiator for New Zealand. "Our 2050 target is pretty darn respectable, and we are saying, 'We will get back to you next year about the 2030 target'. The key thing is to get there, and even get there earlier if we can," he said.

Macey said Shaw's call to refer the NDC to the climate commission was "entirely" right, because the commission was independent. "You have all sorts of people clamouring to do more and others clamouring to do less, so you need a body like that," he said.

"It is better to take a bit more time, rather than rushing it out because of something you said in a meeting."

NOT SIGNING "WOULD BE NOTICED"

Official briefings show diplomats thought it would be noticed if New Zealand said no to signing the statement.

New Zealand's current pledge to the UN is to cut emissions by 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

However the pledge was submitted before an influential report came out, laying out the stark benefits of staying inside 1.5C (rather than 2C), from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - the super-sized international network of scientists who gather and test climate-related evidence.

Briefings released to lawyer Michael Sharp under the Official Information Act show government officials mulled whether signing the statement at the New York climate talks in September was a good idea, given New Zealand was still going through an internal process to decide about updating its pledge.

In the statement by the High Ambition Coalition, instigated by the Marshall Islands, countries promised to update their emissions-cutting pledges to represent “maximum possible ambition” in the first quarter of 2020. They also committed to green finance, and to laying out a path to net-zero emissions.

Aside from Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Costa Rica and Fiji, the other signatories are Belize, Grenada, Luxembourg, Monaco, Norway, Saint Lucia, and Vanuatu.

Staff at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) told Shaw and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Winston Peters, New Zealand should sign up.

They acknowledged joining the statement "might presuppose particular outcomes" from New Zealand's internal work on the NDC. "However, the formulations used in the statement are understood within the coalition as ‘best endeavours’", they advised.

Saying no would be conspicuous, MFAT told the two ministers.

"New Zealand is a long-standing member of the High Ambition Coalition, a party to each of its previous declarations, and a strong advocate for an ambitious global response to climate change," said MFAT's advice to Shaw and Peters.

"If New Zealand were to stand aside from the High Ambition Coalition for the first time during the Secretary-General’s Summit, this would be noticed, and may be questioned by stakeholders and countries interested in New Zealand's climate policies and intentions with respect to climate finance, particularly the Pacific."

Now, because of Covid-19, the next major climate summit in Glasgow has been delayed, until 2021, meaning New Zealand could still update its pledge before the big meeting.

OTHERS ARE LATE TOO

New Zealand is not alone in taking longer to complete its climate homework - only a handful of countries have managed to update their pledges so far, including Norway and the Marshall Islands. 

Macey said that, given the financial disruption from Covid-19, rushing ahead with an update this year might have been "counter-productive".

As of last September, according to the UN, 77 countries had committed to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, while 70 countries had announced they will either boost their national action plans by 2020 or have started the process of doing so.

New Zealand’s Zero Carbon law requires next zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, with somewhere in the range of 24-47 per cent cuts to methane. 

As well as re-visiting the NDC, the climate commission will consider refining New Zealand's methane target.

DairyNZ has called for the NDC to be split into two targets: one for methane and one for longer-lived gases, to better match what's in domestic law.