Photo: 123RF
The government will axe some consultation with both the public and the government's own independent experts on greenhouse gas limits, and how the country reduces them.
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts has announced a raft of proposed changes to the Climate Change Response Act, also known as the Zero Carbon Act, and the Emissions Trading Scheme.
A former climate change commissioner says the changes are "worrying" and show the government is not serious about reducing domestic emissions.
The government proposes to end a requirement for the Climate Change Commission to advise it on the country's emissions reduction plans, which set out how New Zealand plans to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.
The public will also no longer be consulted in any form on national emissions budgets.
At the moment, the Climate Change Commission provides independent expert advice to the government on three crucial parts of New Zealand's climate change response.
The first is the country's 2050 target, currently to achieve net-zero emissions of long-lived gases and to reduce methane emissions by 24-47 percent - although the government is also proposing to lower the methane target to a 14-24 percent reduction.
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
The second is the setting of New Zealand's emissions budgets, which state the total amount of greenhouse gases that can be emitted in a five-year period. The commission currently consults with the public on its advice, but this would no longer be required, and the government itself will also not have to ask the public what it thinks before setting the budget.
The third - which the government also proposes to scrap commission advice on - are the emissions reductions plans. The government would still have to consult the public on its draft plans.
Watts said the changes would remove "unnecessarily complex and duplicative" parts of the law.
"These proposed changes will reduce costs to government and business and provide greater certainty, enabling us to make meaningful reductions more efficiently," Watts said in a press release accompanying the announcement. "They do not lower our ambition."
In a Cabinet paper, Watts said it was his experience that the current requirements "divert focus and resources away from delivering climate change priorities".
But Victoria University climate change scientist Professor James Renwick, who served as a commissioner until December 2024, said the announcement was "worrying news".
Combined with a lower methane target, "it sends a clear signal that this government is not serious about domestic emissions reductions", Professor Renwick said.
Professor James Renwick Photo: Supplied
Removing the requirement to get advice on emissions reductions plans "does away with one of the fundamental reasons for having the commission in the first place", he said.
"It would be great if the commission can continue to develop advice on emissions reductions, to help the public see what our ambition should be, compared to what the government achieves."
In a summary of the changes, the Ministry for the Environment said setting emissions budgets was a technical process and "likely better addressed by expert advice" than through public consultation.
In a public LinkedIn post, independent climate change expert Christina Hood said that was "not acceptable".
"There needs to be public consultation on climate targets - climate ambition is the number one interest of the public," Dr Hood said.
"I agree that some duplicative consultation can be streamlined, but that doesn't mean eliminating consultation altogether."
Massey University applied mathematician Distinguished Professor Robert McLachlan said the commission's most recent advice had found New Zealand's emissions reduction plan "wholly inadequate".
"The commission provides critical independent information and advice both to the government and to the public; it looks like its role in emission reduction plans is to be removed because the government doesn't like that information and advice," he said.
Dr McLachlan also criticised the government's decision to no longer require the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) - the country's main method for reducing domestic emissions - to reference or be influenced by New Zealand's international targets under the Paris Agreement.
The changes mean the price and number of domestic carbon credits available at carbon auctions will no longer need to be set in line with what New Zealand has promised to do internationally.
"Deleting the Paris Agreement as a factor in the setting of [emissions reduction] plans, and deleting the requirement of ETS settings to accord with our Paris Agreement commitments, even though they have been mostly ignored in practice until now, are also significant weakenings."
In a written statement, Green Party co-leader and climate change spokesperson Chlöe Swarbrick said the changes shredded the consensus achieved when climate change laws were passed in 2019 with cross-party support.
"Under the cover of night, Christopher Luxon's government announced their most significant destruction of climate action yet," Swarbrick said.
"You cannot trust the National Party. They supported the cross-partisan Zero Carbon Act and now, in government, are stripping the Climate Change Commission of its powers.
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