COMMENT: I am an optimist. Hope is not a strategy, neither are hopes always the same as expectations. In my world, to hope for something is to have an optimistic bias in a reasonable expectation of something happening in the future.

In the run up to the election this year, my climate hopes are simple.

I hope our candidates:

Use evidence and expert, unbiased advice to inform their policies so public trust in climate policy builds over time.

Acknowledge that more frequent and more extreme weather events are here now and will increase in frequency and severity in coming years to ensure voters understand climate policy is essential to their lives and livelihoods.

Accept that the combustion of fossil fuels in the open air has made, and continues to make, a significant contribution to extreme weather events in order to confront misinformation that the weather has always changed, and there is nothing to see, and even if the weather is changing, we are not causing the change – and even if we are, there is nothing we can do about it. Leadership is required to confront denial and fatalism.

Acknowledge that every tonne of emissions makes the same contribution to extreme weather wherever it comes from, and every tonne avoided contributes the same to better outcomes locally and globally to confront the argument that “because our emissions are small compared to the global total, we don’t need to do anything and anything we do won’t make a difference.”

Acknowledge the evidence that ‘leakage’, the assertion that if we reduce emissions there will be an equal or greater level of emissions elsewhere, is unproven and often asserted by stakeholders profiting from maintaining or increasing their emissions.

Acknowledge that New Zealand made its Paris commitments with full information, at its own discretion, and in its own self-interest, believing it would be cheaper for us to pay other countries to reduce their emissions more than to face the impact on our own economy from larger local reductions and New Zealand will therefore abide by its commitments under the Paris Agreement.

Accept that pricing emissions can reward investment in low emissions technologies and practices in every sector, but price alone cannot fairly distribute burdens of change or reflect the risk of delaying action or the impact of emissions on public health and on the environment and as a consequence relying on market prices alone is an unfair and ineffective climate policy.

Lead our communities to understand that, while adaptation to the changing climate is already underway, adaptation alone is an inadequate local approach to ensure New Zealand produces the low emissions products and services of the future and have lifestyles that are affordable in a climate impacted world.

Call out stakeholders who benefit from delaying the transition to low emissions energy production and transport systems and decline to accept campaign funds and policy advice from these conflicted vested interests.

Promote climate policies that put national interest and the public interest ahead of the vested interests which benefit from delaying greenhouse gas emissions reductions by as much as possible, as soon as possible, from all sources.

Commit to a national energy strategy that promotes decarbonisation through electrification of households and businesses through the accelerated uptake of existing low emissions technologies by eliminating subsidies for fossil fuel exploration, importation, distribution and use, and reducing regulatory and financial barriers to the uptake of low emissions, and waste reducing, technologies and practices.

Commit to investigating how the tax system can be used to accelerate the movement toward a low emissions, climate resilient society.

Promise to set road user charges that reflect the full lifetime capital and maintenance costs of heavy freight on our roads recognising that heavy freight on road increases congestion, has higher emissions, imposes health care costs on society, undermines the economics of rail and near shore marine freight alternatives.

Commit to setting and specifying a future pathway to reduce tail pipe emissions from vehicles to reduce public health costs and create certainty for vehicle purchasers and owners over years to come.

Commit to reform the emissions trading scheme so it operates with a binding cap on emissions that reduces gross emissions consistent with a net zero target that also specifies a maximum offset from carbon sequestration in short life exotic forests by 2050 and every year thereafter in order to increase certainty for land owners and businesses.

Commit to strengthen the the Climate Change Commission's role and resource it to advise on climate policy, advocate and educate on climate policy, and hold the government to account for its actions, which impact on achieving climate budgets and plans, to increase the likelihood that climate policy withstands the pressure from political choices favouring short term gains over public interest in policy stability in the medium term.

Acknowledge that taxpayer support for high emitting industries, high emitting business practices and high emitting lifestyles delays the transition, wastes taxpayer funds, rewards vested interests, discourages innovation and increases the likelihood of a transition that is less fair and more disruptive as a result.

Acknowledge that the cost of living crisis is in part caused by energy price rises, food price rises, rates rises and increases in insurance premiums, that are in part reflecting the changing climate and are therefore foreseeable, requiring policy responses beyond usual monetary and fiscal policy responses of interest rate hikes and fiscal restraint.

Acknowledge that politicising climate policy and polarisation around extreme responses to climate change science, policy and action, is not in New Zealand’s national interest.

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