The future of the Climate Change Commission provoked some strong reactions from the minor political parties in response to a list of climate-related election questions from Carbon News.

The list didn’t include a question on the commission’s future but did ask: Should an independent body - possibly the Climate Change Commission - be in charge of the Emissions Trading Schemes settings?

“The Climate Change Commission is hopelessly politicised, and ACT has committed to abolishing it,” was ACT’s response.

NZ First is yet to respond to the questions in writing, but deputy leader Shane Jones told Carbon News it was time to get rid of the chair of the Commission because he’d gone “woke.”

In a follow-up email, Jones said: “The Climate Change chairman has the wrong skill set, his tone too partisan and lacks ability to work alongside industry. His ongoing dissing of forestry has alarmed regional stakeholders.”

Rod Carr has been the chair of the Commission since its inception in 2019. Commissioners are appointed for a five year term and may be reappointed.

The Green and Labour parties both support giving the Commission more power to directly set unit supply in the ETS in line with emission budgets. 

“This ensures predictable and evidence-based approach to emissions pricing over the long term, in line with the Zero Carbon Act target,” the Green party said.

And that's a position shared by TOP. It says it will enable the Commission “to set carbon prices through a new Official Carbon Rate (OCAR)”.

National wants to stick with the status quo.

“The Climate Commission already has the ability to advise Cabinet but Cabinet should make final decisions.”

The carbon dividend divide

ACT, National, Greens and TOP all support what they call a carbon dividend but the agreement ends there.

ACT’s proposal comes closest to what is usually referred to as a carbon dividend: the recycling of the proceeds of a carbon tax to households.

It says it would take the revenue from each year’s ETS auctions and divide it by the population.

TOP is promising to use revenues from the ETS auctions for investments in renewable energy development, emissions-free transport and a carbon dividend.

The Green Party says it has supported a carbon dividend since at least 2017 and “officials are currently working on what level of carbon dividend would be needed to offset the impacts of a rising carbon price.”

It says that this election it is campaigning on a Clean Power Payment to be paid for by polluters. 

National announced its “carbon dividend” last month only to have experts point out it was nothing of the sort.

The party says its “carbon dividend will return taxes raised on climate polluters to Kiwi families rather than giving subsidies to large corporates.”

In other words it’s using the revenues from the ETS to help pay for its promised tax cuts.

But one of the key arguments for a carbon dividend is that it builds public support for the carbon tax and decarbonisation efforts in general.

In Canada it’s been estimated that 80% of people receive more back in the dividend than they contribute in carbon taxes. 

Labour doesn't support a carbon dividend but does support using ETS revenues to reduce emissions

“Governments can’t just be a bystander when it comes to reducing our emissions….We do not support raiding the CERF [The Climate Emergency Response Fund] for tax cuts at the expense of actual emissions reductions. 

"Some large industrial users say that without complementary measures like GIDI, the ETS price would have to be $200 for vital decarbonisation projects to stack up for their business. This would massively impact the economy, including driving up New Zealanders’ energy costs… This would add more than 40 cents a litre to the cost of petrol.”

What it didn’t say is that if the price of NZUs reached $200 and the full 28 million NZUs available in 2024 were sold at that price, raising $5.6 billion, a carbon dividend would deliver just over $1000 to every person - children included - in Aotearoa.