COMMENT: To be clear, I am not recommending any of these approaches to avoiding our commitments under the Paris Agreement – commitments to hold our net emissions at the level we voluntarily agreed to.

1: Default – just fail to meet our commitments and see what happens

2: Delay – promise to try harder and deliver later

3: Deny – that we ever made the commitment as currently understood

4: Obfuscate – maintain we will meet the commitments

5: Distract - point the finger at others, previous political leaders, other nations

6: Recalibrate – count things differently and count different things

7: Pray – assert new technologies will arrive in time

When Minister of Finance Nicola Willis defended recently released financial forecasts not including any cost for meeting our Paris Commitments through offshore mitigation, (paying other nations to exceed their Paris emissions reduction commitments), she rationalised the position by referring to “new approaches”.

What might those be?

One approach is to default, just simply not meet our commitments and deal with the consequences in the early 2030s. None of our current political leaders are likely to hold Ministerial portfolios in ten years time when any consequences fall on New Zealand. Maybe there won’t be any consequences, or the consequences will be less costly than meeting our commitment but at least the current leadership won’t have to face any consequences now or in the future.

We could just argue for delay. Assert we just need extra time, there is nothing magical about 2030, trust us we are on track to get to net zero by 2050, we can make up for being behind by going faster later. Consequences and penalties for meeting our commitments a little later won’t be that great. We still have time and a credible pathway to net zero by 2050.

We could just deny that the commitment as now presented is the same as the commitment we entered it on. For example, our commitment was conditional on all other countries meeting their commitments, was conditional on new low-cost emissions reduction and removal technologies becoming available, was conditional on our economic growth forecasts. That is we could discover or make up any number of pre conditions that abrogate our responsibility to deliver the outcome we signed up for.

We could just simply say trust us, we meet our commitments. We do not have a plan, but we will have one, we are not on track, but we will be, what matters is the outcome not the pathway. Nothing to see here, leave us alone.

We could distract attention by pointing the finger at past politicians who made the commitment, by blaming bureaucrats and technical advisors who provided inadequate advice, by pointing the finger at other signatories to the Paris Agreement who might or might not meet their commitments.

We could recalibrate how we measure our gross emissions and removals and reset what is included or excluded. Whether these recalibrations are acceptable internationally is less relevant than how they play to domestic voters. If they seem plausible to voters on the grounds of reasonableness and fairness, the science and international response can be discounted.

Then we could just pray that no one notices, or if they do, that no one cares, or pray that a new technology arrives.

I expect we will see a bundle of “new methods” that draws on these seven approaches. The outcome is New Zealand’s emissions will be higher for longer, our dependence on high emitting businesses to earn our living and high emitting lifestyles will create higher costs in the future and give rise to lost opportunities from today, and increase risks faced by middle income, middle aged New Zealanders.

We should expect better leadership and more accountability. Prayer is not a strategy.

Rod Carr was the inaugural chair of the Climate Change Commission from 2019 until his term ended in late 2024.