Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says Pacific Island countries can be confident New Zealand will meet its carbon targets even as the new Government repeals a ban on offshore oil and gas exploration.
In an interview with Newsroom before going to the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, Watts discussed the international reaction to restarting fossil fuel exploration, the role of fossil gas in a decarbonising New Zealand and his approach to climate negotiations.
It’s been a rough start for the Government on the climate front. During coalition negotiations, Vanuatu’s Climate Change Minister, Ralph Regenvanu, urged National not to resume oil and gas exploration. Germany’s climate envoy, Jennifer Morgan, in more circumspect terms, told New Zealand reporters there was “no room for new oil and gas”.
Then, overnight on Sunday, New Zealand received the Fossil of the Day award for the policy. That makes a hat-trick for New Zealand, which also got the title in 2022 and 2021. Alongside further criticism from Palau President Sonny Whipps, Jr, who called the move to repeal the ban “backward” and “tragic”, this has cemented global perceptions of this new Government.
Watts said he wasn’t surprised by the global reaction, but that he was still committed to achieving New Zealand’s climate targets.
“I understand the context, that there will be some international players and countries out there that will look upon this and may take a view that is not in their interests, but New Zealand has our own domestic policy and we have our own requirements that we need to be considerate of,” he said.
“In regards to the Pacific, New Zealand will be going to COP in order to listen, and in particular listen to our Pacific neighbours, which we have one of the strongest and closest relationships with. Can we have dialogue and will we agree on everything? No. Will there be aspects where we may have slightly different positions? Yes, of course, we are sovereign countries.
“But the Pacific countries absolutely can be confident that New Zealand will stand with them in regards to our objectives, to meet our [climate] commitments.”
Criticism of the repeal of the ban ignores that New Zealand will have a domestic emissions pathway which may look different from other countries, Watts said.
“The priority for us is around reduction of domestic emissions. And at the moment, we’re importing a lot of coal from overseas, and that is not where we want to be.”
When challenged on the coal claim – coal imports are at their lowest levels in a decade and coal burning for electricity hasn’t been lower since 1998 – Watts said it was still fair given coal use in 2021 was much higher.
“We’ve got a key need to ensure energy security and also food security. We are an agricultural nation, we feed the world, and it is critical for us to ensure that we have options to ensure that we maintain those industries,” he said.
“A large amount of our nitrogen fertiliser is produced here onshore. A scenario where gas isn’t available and those need to close means that we’re going to need to be importing that from offshore.”
Though Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has defended the renewal of fossil fuel exploration on the grounds that gas will be a transition fuel for New Zealand, Watts wasn’t able to name any sectors beyond power generation that could move from coal to gas to zero-emissions fuels.
“We’re not picking winners and we’re not coming and saying this is who should do what. We are going to work with industry in New Zealand in order to facilitate and assist, where government can, to enable them to decarbonise.”
Watts rejected the idea that without being able to point to sectors that might use gas to get off coal, the repeal of the ban looked more like a lifeline for polluters already burning gas who don’t want to decarbonise.
“I don’t agree with that. I think energy security for critical industries that we are reliant on, in terms of food production, is an essential aspect of certainty for them.”
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the International Institute for Sustainable Development, the International Energy Agency and the United Nations Environment Programme have all found that new fossil fuel exploration is inconsistent with limiting global warming to 1.5C. The last released a report two weeks ago which showed the coal, oil and gas expected to be produced from existing mines and fields would exceed the 1.5C carbon budget by 250 percent.
Asked about this, Watts said New Zealand does have enormous potential for renewable electricity. Shouldn’t that, then, mean we don’t need to restart fossil fuel exploration? While the global consensus at COP28 is converging on the need to phase out fossil fuels (a position the Government is advocating for), New Zealand is one of the only countries in the world seeking to phase in oil and gas extraction.
“The reality is, you can’t turn on the renewable energy that we are planning on today. We need to be pragmatic around the fact that there is going to be a time lag between the decisions being made to accelerate and increase the amount of renewable energy and that coming online.”
This problem with this is that there is also a time lag for new fossil fuel projects. It takes a decade or more for a gas field to start producing, from the date a discovery is made. That means 2034, at the very earliest, for new offshore oil or gas in New Zealand.
It seems unlikely renewable energy projects mooted today will still be undeveloped in a decade, especially when the Government has promised to reduce consenting timeframes for new renewables to one year or less. Not to mention the 20 renewable energy projects which are already consented but which have not yet begun development, which would collectively boost New Zealand’s total power generation capacity by nearly a quarter.
Watts reiterated multiple times that the Government is still committed to all of New Zealand’s climate targets, including the relatively ambitious Paris target. This requires New Zealand to emit 21 percent less greenhouse gases over this decade than it would in a business-as-usual scenario. Though that sounds modest, it’s still a big ask – the Emissions Reduction Plan is only expected to accomplish a third to a half of that.
The remainder is widely expected to be met through so-called offshore mitigation – paying other countries to reduce their emissions either directly or by buying carbon credits. But National hasn’t explained how it will pay for that cost, which the Treasury puts at $3 billion to $23 billion by 2030.
“The expectations of New Zealanders is that we should be focused on domestic emissions reduction. That is the priority and we’re going to do everything within our power to be able to focus on reducing domestic emissions,” he said. But meeting the Paris target solely through domestic action would mean more than doubling the emissions reductions expected under the previous government’s policies.
“All options are on the table in terms of what we’re considering,” Watts replied. Still, “the focus is on domestic emissions reduction”.
Watts also couldn’t say whether the Government would maintain, increase or cut New Zealand’s current climate finance spend when the period for renewal arises in a couple of years. The previous government put $1.3b over four years towards the initiative, but this was partly funded through the Climate Emergency Response Fund, which the new Government will disestablish to pay for tax cuts.
In November, National’s then-spokesperson for foreign affairs, Gerry Brownlee, said the Government wouldn’t reduce the amount of climate finance. Watts, noting the funding issues, wouldn’t make the same commitment.
“What is in place is in place until we make a decision to modify it or not. At this stage, there’s a number of conversations around the broader economic situation that we’ve inherited. We haven’t specifically discussed this as an example, but there is a broader conversation going on.”
He was eager to tout the Government’s commitment to a handful of pledges and initiatives at COP28, including one to triple renewable energy and double energy efficiency by 2030.
“New Zealand are supportive around ambitious moves by countries across the globe to a global tripling of renewable electricity, doubling the energy efficiency and also the phase-out of fossil fuels.”
Under the last government, New Zealand’s diplomatic strategy for climate negotiations was refreshed to be “loud, consistent and dogged in pursuit of” global climate action. This is distinct from a previous view when New Zealand attempted to build consensus and mediate between various factions, including what then-Climate Minister James Shaw called the “petro-states”.
New Zealand has an opportunity to continue to lead, off the back of our high renewable electricity share and our progress on agricultural emissions, Watts said. Asked whether he thought New Zealand should be a climate leader or, in former Prime Minister John Key’s words, a “fast follower”, he said there was room for both.
“I don’t think it’s one or the other, but where there is opportunity for us to be best in class, we’re not going to be sitting on our hands and not filling that void. What the climate needs is leadership from all countries, and we all play different roles in regards to that.”
There is a massive gap between this government saying it is committed to 2030 and 2050 targets and the actions it is undertaking that will take is in the other direction; examples being resuming oil and gas exploration, building moar unnecessary roads, frittering away the climate emergency fund in unaffordable income tax cuts, extending the delay in real action on agricultural emissions, discontinuing the review of the ETS.
(The map of consented renewable electricity projects appears to have missed the windfarm consents that the gentaillers have got and are not progressing past the consenting stage.)
Banning offshore oil and gas exploration was by far the best thing the previous Labour government did. A forward looking first step in a long term massive shift away from fossil fuels. That was always going to be the first target of the new National Government. They are denigrating the knowledge that only a massive effort will help NZ meet the challenge. They can get away with trying this because the targets are not a strong response to the challenge.
If we want to prevent a global mean temperature rise of +2.5C or more, there is now very little time left to act. Despite increasing deployment of wind, solar etc, our GHG emissions are still climbing. In the available time-window, there is simply no way we can go low-carbon without widespread public acceptance of the need for a sharp cut in our energy use:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354067356_Assessment_of_the_Extra_Capacity_Required_of_Alternative_Energy_Electrical_Power_Systems_to_Completely_Replace_Fossil_Fuels
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/calculating-nzs-renewable-electricity-gap
Dear reader, are you up for that? If not, what will you tell your kids a few decades from now? Who is willing to ditch flying, cut discretionary travel, and above all to apply political pressure to our so-called leaders?
Until we’re willing to accept a lower energy -lifestyle, mainstream politicians will be all talk and no meaningful action.
Any sensible person would back all of this. But has anyone thought of our vulnerabilities? In a future emergency when, for whatever reason the oil tanker fails to arrive, having natural gas or even a small oil field, would allow us to at least keep warm on those days the sun doesn’t shine, the wind doesn’t blow, and who knows what level of drought may empty our rivers and our hydro lakes.
As a small nation at the bottom of the world we might be wise to build our independence in these increasingly uncertain times.
What’s the point of this government having a climate minister?
” We are an agricultural nation, we feed the world” – balderdash. We don’t feed the world. We produce high priced meat for those who can afford it and milk products as a commodity. Pricing of these is always fragile and they risk rejection due to our inability to deal with their air and water pollution.