SoSaturnistic is streaming responses to questions posed to him by some of his Twitter followers about the Labour Party’s planned reforms to climate policy:

”Our first question comes from the curiously-named @zhjr132, a self-described ‘climate advocate’. She asks the following:

@saturn4nz Can you offer some highlights of the climate policy reforms Labour would make if it formed a new Government?

“That’s a simple enough question, I would say that our policy is going to remain somewhat consistent even though there will be meaningful changes. In Government we delivered a modest increase of $10 on the take of the carbon tax as promised in our previous manifesto. We still want to carry over carbon pricing and we want to make sure that this is here to stay within New Zealand’s approach to addressing climate change, after all this is the ideal approach recognised by many climate scientists and economists. However, we’re going to take a big step here and swap the pricing mechanism from being one based on an abstract carbon tax rate and instead making it based upon a new New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme. This pricing model would resemble many which are currently in effect in other jurisdictions, like the European Union, and would help us meet and even surpass our obligations under the Paris Agreement.”

SoSaturnistic’s thread gets ratio’d.

“I see there’s a number of responses to what I have said so I’ll take the next natural question from Green Party member @imnowombat. Here’s what he said:”

@saturn4nz Bringing back ETS was announced by National. What makes you different? Or is this just another case of Labour failing to deliver on climate and capitulating to right wing interests?

“First of all, I would contest the idea that Labour is anything but a progressive political force. Our work and record in Government is testament to that. However, our policy differs from the National Party’s in important ways. Yes, our parties want to have an ETS system, but Labour is not ‘bringing back’ ETS in the way National wants. National wants to go back to the system we had in 2017. We in Labour absolutely understand that the old system of ETS just didn’t work in terms of cutting emissions. The exemptions granted under the scheme were, frankly, too generous to have the effect we need if we want to address climate change and meet our international obligations. Indeed, many sectors were able to avoid paying for pollution which is a sign of failure. When that happens, you aren’t really pricing carbon well and there’s no incentive to cut back on dirty industrial processes.

Granted, this wasn’t a problem inherent to New Zealand as the EU’s own ETS has been faulted similarly because of the emissions exemptions granted to specific industries and sectors. But even in Europe, conservative politicians understand that these exemptions are the way of the past and are untenable and it’s why the EU intends to scrap many of them. Likewise, Labour’s new ETS won’t have the exemptions carved out by the Fifth National Government and it will be able to meaningfully cut down on emissions in time.

That doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface on differences though. National is quite intent on increasing the amount of offshore fossil fuel extraction for example, and that’s something the Labour Party isn’t interested in.”

The rate of responses slows down a bit after that lengthy response.

“I only have time for one more question to fit in my schedule. Let’s hope this is good.

Here’s one from @MobyTamhire:”

@saturn4nz So far you’ve sort of dodged the fundamental question. If ETS has been gamed by special interests before why risk it? If you’re switching from carbon tax to a new carbon pricing mechanism what advantage is there besides letting big polluters off the hook?

“That’s a fair question and one I have heard a lot. In fact, there was substantial deliberation within the Labour Party itself when we were planning our manifesto. Here’s the reason why though: the carbon tax has an international trade issue.

People who back the carbon tax have the right intentions, but what they fail to understand is that it is difficult to handle border adjustment. For example, if a manufacturer wanted to avoid the carbon tax they could simply do so by offshoring to a country without carbon pricing. This phenomenon can actually worsen emissions as the consumption of New Zealanders drives dirty and polluting industrial processes abroad. Now some have suggested the prospect of a carbon tariff. That’s just difficult to do at the moment though, given that it would require many years of negotiation as far as international trade is concerned. We have a number of agreements and obligations to uphold and that means we can’t just unilaterally throw up tariffs without there being litigation; if New Zealand were to be adversely judged at the WTO for instance it could have real negative impacts on jobs and wellbeing in New Zealand.

An ETS offers a nice alternative. With ETS we use internationally tradable carbon units, so border adjustment is smoother and legal as done by the Kyoto Protocol. It means we can actually account for those countries that don’t have as high standards as we do in New Zealand and it means we aren’t running the risk of offshoring jobs for no reason as may be the case with the carbon tax. A well-structured ETS gives us the best of both worlds and it’s why Labour is backing this ultimately common-sense climate policy which works for people and planet.

That’s all, thanks for listening in and I hope I have cleared up any confusion about Labour’s transformative climate policy this election.”