Confrontingly, people and business in New Zealand don't want much done about climate change and the Government has delivered them what they want, writes Rod Oram
Opinion: Some 18 countries have reduced their greenhouse gas emissions for more than a decade, often by more than 4 percent a year -- the rate required globally to keep the rise in temperature to under 1.5c, the upper limit for manageable climate change.
If those few can, why can’t the other 177 countries? That’s a crucial question the IPCC, the UN’s climate science body, seeks to answer in its latest report. It makes grim reading. It says the global failure to reduce emissions makes the 1.5c goal all but dead, as this Newsroom report covered.
New Zealand’s one of the worst outliers. Our net emissions will peak at best in 2025, at more than double their 1990 level, MfE estimated in 2020. By 2030, our net emissions will still be higher than in 2018.
Seeking to understand why countries don’t act – and how they might change their ways - the IPCC turns for the first time in its history to the social sciences. It devotes a chapter to this broad and deep field, shedding light on the likes of social innovation and behaviour change.
“Consumption is a habit-driven and social practice rather than simply a set of individual decisions, making shifts in consumption harder to pursue,” it says. Moreover, “shifts towards low-carbon behaviour are also inhibited by social-psychological and political dynamics that cause individuals to ignore the connections from daily consumption practices to climate change impacts.”
To give examples of positive changes, it applies the Avoid-Shift-Improve approach to environmental sustainability developed first in Germany in the early 1990s for the transport sector.
Applying the concept to global emissions the IPCC says: “The greatest Avoid potential comes from reducing long-haul aviation and providing short-distance low-carbon urban infrastructures. The greatest Shift potential would come from switching to plant-based diets. The greatest Improve potential comes from within the building sector, and in particular increased use of energy efficient end-use technologies and passive housing [those by design and construction that require no heating or cooling].”
If such changes in behaviour and culture were achieved at large scale across societies, they could deliver between 40 percent and 70 percent of the emission cuts required to meet the 1.5c goal, the IPCC concludes.
There’s already a wealth of social science literature on how to effect such shifts. One of the plethora of papers the IPCC cites was written for the UK Climate Change Commission in 2019 by Richard Carmichael of Imperial College, London.
He argues, for example, for policies that achieve high-impact shifts in consumer behaviours and choices, which also build optimism and commitment. “These changes need not be expensive or reduce well-being and could deliver huge co-benefits to health and beyond.”
In other words, investing heavily in new, clean technologies at scale is critical for our climate responses. But at the same time, we can achieve a great deal for a lot less by changing our consumption and behaviour patterns – while gaining other things for free, such as improved health.
Are we Kiwis up for it? Not particularly, two recent surveys suggest. Worryingly, both include some curious anomalies that suggest we are misleading ourselves on some crucial climate issues.
The first survey covered us along with 16 other advanced economies. It was published last September by the Pew Research Center of the US. We ranked second to only Singapore in our confidence that our government was doing a “somewhat good” or “very good job” on climate change. That’s odd. Our successive governments have struggled for 25 years to introduce any effective climate policies, let alone stop our emissions rising.
Majority confident in own public's response to climate change
In the same optimistic frame of mind, we’re not particularly worried about climate change. We ranked third lowest of the 17 nations on climate change having a “somewhat” or “very” negative impact in our lifetimes. The Australians are less worried than we are. But only the Swedes, the least worried, have good cause to believe so, given their cold climate, emission reductions and progress towards a zero carbon economy.
Many concerned climate change will harm them personally
Our willingness to change our consumption and behaviour ranks only 12th out of the 17 countries. Perhaps this view is shaped more by our belief that climate change isn’t much of a problem here. Maybe we think climate change plays no role in the increasing incidents of torrential rain and widespread floods.
Most willing to make consumption changes
Similarly, we’re not convinced that tackling climate change will benefit our economy. On this measure, we rank 13th out of the 17th countries. In fact, our belief the climate response will have no impact on our economy (positive or negative) ranks the 4th highest.
Divided over economic impact of international actions
The second survey, specifically of our economy, was conducted by Kantar in conjunction with the Sustainable Business Council. Two years ago, UK-based Kantar acquired Colmar Brunton which has run this Better Futures survey here for 13 years.
Among respondents to the latest survey, 45 percent agreed that “climate change problems are so far in the future.” The score was only five percentage points lower than two years ago.
Kantar and the SBC interpret this optimistically: “Similarly, more of us now appreciate the immediacy of the problem.”
But even if the other 55 percent of the public believed the climate crisis was a clear and present danger, that would not translate into support for transformative policies and economic actions.
Only the Greens support those. Other parties drift off across the political spectrum from Labour (convinced but cautious) and Te Pāti Māori (convinced but small) to National (conflicted and resistant) and ACT (sceptical and hostile), ditto NZ First should it return to parliament.
As for voters, climate doesn’t rank in their top 10 concerns. Three environmental issues do rank but they involve plastic, rubbish and landfills. Handily they are the easiest of the 10 to fix, should we ever decide to do so. But their contribution to solving the climate crisis is negligible.
Big NZ concerns are social and economic, not environmental
We also have a fantastically inflated opinion of our climate progress – 38 percent of respondents believe we are doing somewhat or much better than other countries on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. About half the respondents reckon we’re doing at least as well as other countries on sustainability issues generally.
For a reality check on sustainability, the OECD reviews member countries’ environmental performance. Its most recent one of us was in 2017. It wasn’t flattering. We haven’t reformed much since.
For a reality check on climate performance, Climate Action Tracker rates ours as “Highly Insufficient.”
NZ could do more – but still satisfied
The survey classifies 32 per cent of respondents as Actives on climate and sustainability issues – “I believe and do”; 20 percent as Believers – “I believe but I don’t do as much”; 28 percent as Considerers – “I believe but I only do a little”; and 20 percent as Dismissers – “I don’t really care”.
It found that a range of barriers are holding people back, the willing and the unwilling, as this response showed:
Effort is the new barrier to sustainable behaviours
Another barrier is “a lack of messaging clarity from business,” Kantar and the SBC concluded. Fully 63 percent of respondents concurred with the statement: “The way businesses talk about their social and environmental commitments is confusing.”
Confusion at business language on environmental commitments
Finding all this too hard, a majority of people believe the Government should lead the way on climate.
NZers believe Government should lead the way
But we have a democracy. So the Government can only do as much as people and businesses want. Judging by these two surveys, people and business don’t want much. Which is exactly what the Government has delivered to-date.
We won’t achieve more until we demand it of ourselves; and we support each other in delivering it.
