While $2.9 billion in new climate-related spending was announced alongside the Emissions Reduction Plan on Monday, Budget 2022 has a few hidden extras for climate policy, Marc Daalder reports
Work on the third leg of the resource management reforms, meant to address the issue of who should pay to protect or retreat from coastlines swallowed up by sea-level rise, will finally progress this year.
The Climate Adaptation Act was supposed to be progressed alongside the Natural and Built Environment Act and the Strategic Planning Act. However, those two bills will be introduced to Parliament this year, while the climate act's timeline is less clear. Newsroom reported in February that a failed Budget 2021 bid from the Ministry for the Environment led to a range of delays to the climate policy work programme, including splitting the adaptation act onto a separate schedule.
That has now been rectified, with a $10.6 million bid from the Ministry for the Environment successfully making it into Budget 2022. The initiative is one of a handful of climate-related spends held over to the release of the Budget on Thursday.
Another successful environment ministry bid includes $36.7 million over four years "to deliver adaptation and New Zealand's low-carbon future". Budget documents show this will cover cost pressures faced by the ministry in its climate change work, given the added workloads from the National Adaptation Plan and the Emissions Reduction Plan.
"Funding will ensure the Ministry can implement a complex and cross government climate change work programme," the Budget reported.
The vast majority of the Government's climate programme for the coming year was announced on Monday, alongside the Emissions Reduction Plan and $2.9 billion from a climate response fund.
While the money to progress policy work on the adaptation act and other parts of the climate change programme came from regular Government funding sources, the climate fund did put money towards four new projects announced on Thursday. Framed as a cost of living package, this included a $73 million boost to the Warmer Kiwi Homes programme which subsidises insulation and heating retrofits in low-income homes.
"This extension will provide an extra 26,500 insulation and heating retrofits, helping tens of thousands of New Zealanders improve their health by heating homes properly, without increasing their power bill," Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods said in a statement.
A two month extension to the current halving of public transport fares, taking the discount through to the end of August for most of the country, will cost another $27 million. However, halved public transport fares were made permanent for all Community Services Cardholders in a scheme expected to cost $103 million over the next four years.
The fourth and final new initiative funded from the Climate Emergency Response Fund was $4 million a year for community-based renewable energy projects, expanding the Government's existing Māori and Public Housing Renewable Energy Fund.
This programme will include grants for the development of renewable energy projects and cover the cost of implementation. Money will be targeted at low-income communities or those with insecure access to energy and will cover both renewable generation options like solar and energy optimisation tools like batteries and smart demand management.
Speaking to Newsroom prior to the Budget, Woods said the Government didn't see a role for general subsidies for solar energy.
"The payback period on solar means that actually the time for actual government subsidies for those may actually be over," she said.
"Where we are doing some work and doing some investment is where we can get double duty out of them. We've been doing a trial on public housing with the realisation that a third of someone's power bill is actually water heating."
Woods said the main cost of solar was labour and, if a battery was involved, the battery. But hot water cylinders can act as a battery, storing energy that is generated by solar during the day.
"We've also had some funding to try and address energy poverty with Māori housing. Most of that hasn't been on individual houses. Some of it's like community arrays. It's getting more to that distributed and decentralised model where you have community generation. We're being quite targeted with our incentives for this."
Beyond the climate fund, the Government also provided another $15 million to the Climate Change Commission. Budget documents indicate this will be put towards new climate and economic modelling, research, the establishment of a team focusing on climate adaptation and increased "board and board advisory capability".
