At the Green Party hui, James Shaw delivered a grim speech about the state of the climate crisis and revealed a new Government policy, Marc Daalder reports
In an unusual move, Green Party co-leader James Shaw used his speech at the party's annual meeting to announce a new Government policy.
Cabinet agreed last week to reform the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) so it recognises all forms of carbon sinks, including more vegetation on farmland and the sequestering power of wetlands and peatlands, he said.
The move will be welcomed by farmers and environmentalists alike, Shaw promised, because it will help farmers offset the costs of emissions pricing and it aligns better with the science.
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"That's a good thing for nature. It's a good thing for tangata whenua, for landowners and for farmers to have more options than pine trees to sequester carbon from the atmosphere."
Currently, the ETS only recognises carbon absorbed by forests and New Zealand is one of just two countries that has limited sequestration in its Paris Agreement climate target to forests. The changes will also apply to New Zealand's climate targets, so work to rejuvenate wetlands for example will help us reach our emissions goals.
When fully implemented, landowners will receive carbon credits for each tonne of CO2 absorbed by their land. They can then use those to offset other emissions or sell them to emitters.
Shaw told Newsroom there's still a long path before that decision is fully implemented, however.
"There is some scientific work that has to happen in each of those categories to make it work. So essentially the Cabinet decision started that process off," he said.
"The next thing that will need to happen is we will need to reform the Emissions Trading Scheme to create a standard by which, if you meet that standard in terms of research and development and the scientific data that you collect, that you can then bring those things into the Emissions Trading Scheme as options."
Shaw made the announcement as part of his address to Green Party members in Auckland on Saturday, day one of a two-day hui. His speech was sombre and warned that the twin climate and biodiversity crises are only getting worse.
"The climate crisis is no longer something that’s happening to someone else, somewhere else, at some point in the future," he said. "It’s happening to us. It’s happening here. It’s happening now."
Shaw highlighted work in the climate and nature space that the Greens had a hand in over the past two terms of Parliament, including the passage of the Zero Carbon Act, the creation of the Emissions Trading Scheme and Friday's announcement of a new National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity.
While the degree of progress on these issues in government is a sore point for the Greens – with members turfing Shaw out of his job last year amidst dissatisfaction with the way things were going - he didn't shy away from celebrating those accomplishments or the need to continue working in government.
"Every year, when I make these speeches at AGM – my eighth as co-leader – I am reminded that I stand before you, not as a Minister, or co-leader, but as someone who wants the same things you do. As someone who does not want another generation to have to bear the burden of slow progress," Shaw said.
"There is no doubt in my mind that the only way to get the speed and scale of action we need is to make sure the plan is led by a Green Minister of Climate Change."
Over the past year, he has spent time reconnecting with the membership and rebuilding trust. That effort was rewarded with an uncontroversial renomination on Saturday – both Shaw and Marama Davidson will keep their roles for another year.
At the end of his address, Shaw turned the focus back to the stakes for the election. He warned that National and Act would undo not just the past six years of progress on climate policy but decades of it.
"Everything we have achieved, from putting climate targets into law, to ending the use of coal to heat our schools and hospitals, to finally putting nature at the heart of our climate response will be dismantled and we’ll be back where we were, 30 years ago," he said.
When questioned on that afterwards, he stood by it.
"Politics is a numbers game, right? If you look at the numbers as they're currently sitting in the polling, if there is a National government, it will be beholden to the Act Party," he told reporters.
Davidson will make a speech on Sunday afternoon, coinciding with the release of the Green Party's manifesto. Where Shaw focused on what has been done to-date, she is expected to cast forward to the election and the party's priorities if in government afterwards.
