Right-wing NZ government accused of ‘war on nature’ after axing climate policy

The New Zealand government has been accused of waging a “war on nature” after announcing sweeping cuts to climate action projects while making no significant new investments in environmental protection or policies related to the climate crisis.

In its 2024/25 budget, delivered on Thursday, the right-wing coalition announced spending on law and order, education, health and a series of tax cuts as the country grapples with inflation and cost-of-living pressures.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis, who delivered the budget against a backdrop of a technical recession and widening government deficits, said it was a “fiscally responsible budget” that was “putting New Zealand’s money where it can make the most difference.” big”.

But the budget documents lacked any significant new spending on the climate crisis. Instead, dozens of climate-related initiatives, including programs in the Emissions Reduction Plan and funding for data and evidence specialists, underwent sweeping cuts.

In a media release, climate change minister Simon Watts said “responsible and effective climate-related initiatives that support New Zealand to reduce emissions and adapt to the future effects of climate change are a priority” .

He said the government would invest to achieve these goals, including funding climate resilience projects such as levee prevention and flood walls through the Regional Infrastructure Fund, a $200 million boost to the Improvement Program Network Rail and expanding the scope of the Landfill Tax to support a wider range of environmental and waste-related activities.

When asked by the Guardian if there was any significant new funding to tackle climate change and protect the environment, Watts pointed to resilience projects.

Meanwhile, Environment Minister Penny Simmonds told the Guardian that the increase in waste tax “will mean a wider range of environmental projects can be funded”, including emergency waste disposal, cleaning up contaminated sites and freshwater improvement.

But critics said the government’s approach to protecting the environment and tackling climate change was backward, while climate resilience projects were rock bottom ambulances with no plans for future climate mitigation.

Meanwhile, the railway improvement program was understood to be focused on existing railway lines. It was unclear whether it included new rail projects. The changes to the waste disposal fee mainly involved the reallocation of existing funds.

The Labor opposition called the budget a “disaster” that was “setting us back”.

The only new investment in the environment section of the budget was a $23 million annual commitment to push through the government’s resource management changes, including a controversial fast-track bill that could see conservation concerns ignored and projects to be rejected once for environmental reasons by getting the green light. .

The government says it has found $102 million in savings and revenue a year across the environment sector through various cuts, including cutting climate change programs, reducing spending on specialists who provide evidence and data, including updates of environmental standards, monitoring and reporting and reducing funding for the Climate Change Commission, which advises the government on climate change policy.

In conservation, another year of $33 million will be cut. There is an annual investment of $1 million listed in budget documents, but government officials could not explain where the money would go, citing “commercial sensitivities.”

Programs and areas related to climate policy subject to cuts across government included:

• Maori knowledge-based approaches to reducing agricultural emissions

• Community-based renewable energy schemes

• Climate Change Commission

• External and internal experts providing evidence and data for environmental monitoring and science

• Freshwater policy initiatives

• Planting native forests

• Developing a circular economy, in relation to recycling and reuse

• Jobs for Nature, a program that creates jobs to benefit the environment

• Reduction of biosecurity monitoring

New Zealand is still rebuilding from the massive devastation caused by the deadly Auckland floods of 2023 and Cyclone Gabrielle, which killed 11 people and devastated large parts of the North Island’s east coast.

Among the spending promises in the budget was 1 billion dollars to rebuild the regions hit by these disasters.

Human-caused climate destruction has increased the occurrence of more intense and destructive tropical cyclones (although the total number per year has not changed globally). This is because warming oceans provide more energy, producing stronger storms.

‘Head on the Coal’

Green party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick described the government as a “coalition of cowards” that was allowing the climate crisis to “rager unchallenged” and whose attack on the climate would ripple through generations to come.

“The other day, the government parties said, ‘exercise, baby, exercise,’ and today, they might as well have said, ‘burn, baby, burn,'” Swarbrick said, adding that the budget had seen funding from almost everything great. program in the Emissions Reduction Plan was deleted.

The government “was choosing to bury its head in the coals,” she said. “It has made the choice to put cynical politics ahead of people and planet, serving the short-term interests of wealthy donors over the well-being of us all.”

The first budget from the right-wing coalition – made up of the centre-right National party, libertarian ACT and populist NZ First – is a sharp departure from the previous Labor government’s environmental commitments. In 2017, Labor Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said climate change was her nuclear-free generation’s moment and put climate policy at the top of her agenda.

In 2022, her government unveiled the most significant climate change action announcement in the country’s history – $4.5 billion for a Climate Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to try to drive a low-emissions economy and prepare the country for the effects of climate collapse.

On Thursday, the government said $2.6 billion in climate change initiatives previously funded by CERF would continue, including a public network of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, decarbonisation of public transport and public transport concessions for cardholders. community service.

But the climate change minister also said the government would end the practice of ring-fenced money raised through emissions trading for that climate fund, meaning the previous government’s ambitious fund would be absorbed into the normal budget process.

Environmental group Forest and Bird said the budget signaled another blow in the government’s “war on nature” and singled out its funding for the fast-track bill.

“The government’s biggest new investment in the environment is implementing reforms that will fast-track untold environmental damage,” said Richard Capie, the conservation organisation’s general manager.

“In the middle of a climate emergency, you don’t walk away from investing in climate action – it’s not business as usual, and to call it that is head-in-the-sand stuff.”