Climate change emergency may pave way for EV uptake

Prime minister Jacinda Ardern is declaring a climate change emergency, promising a carbon-neutral Government by 2025 and the country being net zero by 2050.

The motion before Parliament will declare a climate change emergency based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) finding that global emissions need a drastic cut to avoid more than 1.5C of warming.

It potentially gives the government a push to more aggressively pursue carbon reduction proposals like the Clean Car Standard (emissions) and Clean Car Discount (feebate).

The Carbon Neutral Government Programme will require public sector agencies to measure and publicly report on their emissions and to offset any they can’t cut by 2025.

The programme is backed by the $200 million State Sector Decarbonisation Fund that will finance the replacement of public sector coal boilers and support the immediate purchase of electric or hybrid vehicles to start replacing the government’s petrol car fleet.

The government fleet has nearly 16,000 vehicles.

Next year, the government will agree the first three emissions budgets required under the Zero Carbon Act, publish an emissions reduction plan to meet these budgets, consider updating New Zealand’s target under the Paris Agreement, and adopt a plan to meet our international obligations for the period 2021-2030, climate change minister James Shaw adds.

The National Party opposition is branding the declaration “tokenism”.

New Zealand will join 32 countries which have declared a climate change emergency.

The motion includes a promise to “show leadership and demonstrate what is possible to other sectors of the New Zealand economy by reducing the Government’s own emissions and becoming a carbon-neutral Government by 2025.”

We include the motion here.