Opportunity to provide feedback to help shape Aotearoa New Zealand’s 2035 international climate change target – how we want to be seen on the world stage
The Government is inviting our views on Aotearoa’s international climate commitment under the Paris Agreement for the period 2031-2035. Our target, expressed through our second Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC2), is due in February 2025. The next opportunity to influence our NDC (covering 2036-2040) won’t roll around until 2029.
Under Article 4 of the 2015 Paris Agreement, ‘Each Party’s successive nationally determined contribution will represent a progression beyond the Party’s then current nationally determined contribution and reflect its highest possible ambition, reflecting its common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances.”
The 2023 ‘Global Stocktake’ (a five yearly process established under Article 14 of the Paris Agreement) found that humanity has avoided a potential 4°C increase. We are though still on a path to a 2.1-2.8°C increase (if all current climate action plans are implemented), way above the 1.5°C limit that would avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
Aotearoa’s current target is a 50% reduction below 2005 gross emissions. The UK recently came through with a (real) ambitious commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 81% by 2035, relative to 1990 (a much tougher baseline than Aotearoa’s 2005 baseline).
We invite you to consider that Aotearoa’s future climate is not in our hands. Rather, our principal leverage to mitigate climate change risks (think Nelson atmospheric river, Auckland floods, Cyclone Gabrielle) is to foster the goodwill and climate action of humanity across the globe by the ambition we show to reduce our emissions, acknowledging we’ve disproportionately emitted. We’d do that by an NDC2 target with a 7 or 8 in front of it.
The Ministry’s feedback paper is here and the Climate Change Commission’s advice here. (The MfE paper is framed in the narrow world view of short-term economic cost vs. what’s good for our common humanity and mokopuna).
You can provide your views here. There are five substantive questions only (you may need just 15 minutes to answer them). Submissions close Sunday 8 December.
Two very helpful articles: domestic action towards New Zealand’s second NDC (2031-2035); UK to slash climate pollution by 81%. Could NZ do the same? – Newsroom