FAQ: What are NZ’s Climate commitments?

NDCs, domestic carbon budgets.. what have we committed to, and how will we achieve them?

Net Zero 2050 is the aim, and a good one. Getting there, however, is the tricky part. The word commitments is one that comes up often in climate discussions, but the details of said commitments are often murky. What is New Zealand committed to? How are we planning to get there? Will we make it?

What do all these words mean?

This is a field full of confusing terminology. To start off, let’s run over four key terms:. 

1. The Paris Agreement

Signed in 2015, The Paris Agreement is an international agreement between 196 nations to collectively bring emissions below the level that would result in 2 degrees of warming above pre-industrial times. There’s also a vague pledge in there to get warming beneath 1.5 degrees, if at all possible. The agreement is binding – nations are legally obligated to set up plans to bring down their emissions, but there is no way to make countries stick to those plans.

2. Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)

The Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) is the name for the plans that countries are obligated to have. Basically, they are the what and the how of carbon reduction commitments. Ours is to reduce our net 2030 emissions by 50% compared to 2005 gross emissions. Budgets are often put in place to provide a roadmap to these goals. 

3. Domestic carbon budget

Our domestic carbon budget is the maximum amount of carbon we’re allowed to emit, thanks to the zero carbon legislation. This is where things can be confusing:we have a budget provided by the NDC, and a domestic carbon budget. You would think the two budgets would be aligned - why would we commit to doing different things domestically and internationally? We’ll dig into this more later, but for now just understand there are multiple budgets.

4. Conferences of the Parties (COPs)

Each year, the countries that signed the Paris Agreement meet at events called COPs. Everyone assesses how they are going towards reaching their obligations, and more commitments may be made. For instance, at COP26 New Zealand signed up to a pledge which aims to cut global methane by 30% by 2030, and added some of our own commitments to reduce methane by 2023 and 2050 to the pledge. There’s a raft of similar promises made at each COP, like net-zero aviation by 2050, no new coal power, and more.

Do we have to stick to them?

Here’s where things get tricky. Commitments agreed internationally are non-binding. So while it’s all very well and good for a nation to sign international legislation saying they will do X to save the climate, there is nothing to actually ensure they will actually do it. A great example of this is New Zealand’s methane cuts I just mentioned. Yes, we said we would reduce them. No, we have no clue how we are going to do so. 

So when the word ‘commitments’ is used, think of them more as promises, rather than contracts. There’s nothing forcing a country to keep to its word.

Let me repeat our NDC commitment again. Aotearoa’s commitment is to reduce our net 2030 emissions by 50% (carbon emitted - carbon offset or removed) compared to 2005 gross emissions (carbon emitted only, so it’s a larger number). So we are comparing apples and oranges. We are using cheeky wording to make our targets look more ambitious than they are.

In fairness to the current government, they did update the NDC from what it was previously; the last one was even less ambitious. But it’s still maddening to see our carbon reductions get artificially inflated. 

How do the domestic budgets differ?

The domestic budgets are different in that their existence is mandated by the Climate Change Response Act, which is a law in force in New Zealand thanks to a group of young activists at Generation Zero who drafted the law. Because it’s a domestic law and not an international agreement, it’s actually legally binding (unlike everything else mentioned so far).

Our domestic carbon budgets are essentially a limit on how much CO2 equivalents we can emit until 2035. You may read this and think ‘but hang on, doesn’t the NDC also provide for that?’, and yes. This is where it gets confusing because the domestic budgets and the NDC budget are not aligned.

The NDC budget gives 571 Mt of carbon equivalent between 2021 and 2030 (9 years). The domestic budget gives us 595 Mt of carbon equivalent between 2022 and 2030 (8 years), 24 more Mt and 1 year shorter than the NDC. While numbers like ‘595 Mt of carbon equivalent’ might feel a bit nebulous, what is important is that the domestic budget gives us permission to emit more carbon in a shorter time frame than the NDC.

Why is there this misalignment? Who knows. Everything in this area is deliberately opaque as to why our domestic budget and our NDC are not aligned. It’s as if you set yourself a budget to curb your spending habits - the NDC -  then make up another one - the domestic - because you don’t like how restricting it is. 

Ultimately, the domestic budgets are legally binding. The NDC is not, even though it’s treated like it is – it means diddly squat, and yet the government touts it as if it is a binding piece of legislation. This is misleading.

There is the hope that through further domestic action, we can reduce our own domestic budgets to become the same as the NDC. But if that was the case, then why wouldn’t our domestic budgets match it?

So when all is said and done, we have a budget of 595 Mt of carbon equivalent we can emit until 2030. If you ever read 571 Mt, then that number is referring to our NDC, and is not the one that’s going to hold us to account.

Will we at least achieve our goals?

No. 

…Why won’t we achieve our goals?

MfE says on their website that even in a low-emissions (best case, lots of good climate policy and behaviour change) scenario, we will end up overshooting our NDC budget - the more restrictive one - by 88 Mt. This means we’ll need to buy overseas offsets. MfE also says regarding our domestic budgets, offshore offsets will only be used in ‘exceptional circumstances.’ There is no elaboration on what exactly ‘exceptional circumstances’ are.

MfE also says we knew about this shortfall when we agreed to it, and assumed we’ll make it up via further domestic action down the road (magically being more climate action-y in the future), and the rest being offsets. A vague pledge about more climate action doesn’t sound promising when our government is still backpedaling on climate policy.

Even if we somehow achieve a low-emissions scenario, we’ll still blow both our domestic budget and the NDC. Given we're essentially planning to not meet our budgets with our current climate policies, it seems likely that the "exceptional circumstances" quoted for the use of offshore offsets will just become excuses for covering up inability to meet our targets. It will cost the country heaps of money to buy these offsets from other countries. Where does this money come from? Taxes, which many right-wing parties that oppose climate policy are loathe to raise. 

What's more, because so many countries and corporations are relying on offsets to meet their targets rather than actually reducing their emissions, the amount of offsets in demand exceeds the global supply. That doesn't just mean they’ll cost an exorbitant amount, it means literal supply. We don't have enough land on earth to plant the number of trees we'd need to provide that much carbon offsets.

Which leaves us with not meeting any commitments, legally binding or not. There’s a lot of useless politicking here, and the climate (and everyone who depends on it, i.e. all of us) will be the one to suffer for it.

What can we do about it?

In short, pile on the political pressure to let our representatives know that we must meet these commitments.

• Give politicians the political mandate to make stronger, legally binding commitments, by asking them in public forums and on social media what they plan to do about our NDCs.

• Calling out politicians when they point to our NDCs and domestic carbon budgets as the reasons for why we’ll be okay. This is greenwashing – we’re not going to be okay if we don’t actually stick to them!

• Calmly debunk common myths about climate action, like whether we’ll have issues with carbon leakage if we go hard & fast on reducing emissions (not really), or whether we can even make a difference as a small country (absolutely).

Politics responds to the public – we have the power to make it clear that meeting these commitments is vital to the future of our country and planet.