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Adrian Macey: NZ Climate Change Research Institute Adjunct Professor on ACT's pledge to scrap the Climate Commission · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk climate change now. Bear with me.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: ACT has brought back its old policy. It wants to
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: get rid of the Climate Change Commission. That old thing.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Paul Henry says the Commission's recommendations are loony and unhelpful.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: It continues to cost $ 14 to $ 15 million a year
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: to run. To do what? To produce reports that shouldn't
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: be written or read. reports that are counterproductive to New
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Zealand's future, to our economy, and ironically, many of them
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: counterproductive to the environment.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Adrian Macy, Adjunct Professor at the New Zealand Climate Change
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Research Institute, joins us. So it's $ 100 million over seven years.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Good morning, Adrian.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: Good morning, Ron.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Now, they kind of make a good point, don't they?
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: The Commission has come up with recommendations that both Labour
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: and National have ignored or rejected outright. So what's the
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: bloody point in $ 100 million?
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: Well, the Commission has actually got a pretty fundamental role,
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: which is not only recommending targets, which is what the
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: complaint has been about. If you look at the other
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: half of their work, which I would argue is even
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: more important, it's how we prepare ourselves for the impacts
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: of climate change. They're doing a lot of research on that.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: Look at all the damage that's occurred in the North
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: Island especially. So how New Zealand adapts to climate change,
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: and that's absolutely fundamental. So having... Having an independent voice
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: on that, I think, is important, especially if we want
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: to get back to any bipartisanship on climate change. That
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: remains important. That being said, there have been some issues,
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: I think, with the Commission's recommendations on targets. But they
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: can be fixed. The government doesn't have to agree with them.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: They can change the parameters of the commission. And they
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: have done that on one issue, which is pretty fundamental
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: to New Zealand, which is methane. And there have been
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: some adjustments made to the Zero Carbon Act. And they
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: look to me, they're reasonably sensible.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I think it's... Adrian, you talk about adaptation.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: I think it's a fair point. We all know we
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: need to do more of it, right? But you're from
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: the New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute. We've got umpteen
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: different climate change researchers at universities in New Zealand. Why
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: do we need another research group?
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: Well, the point of having a parliament, just like the
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: Parliamentary Commission for the Environment, the point of having the
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: parliamentary commission body is its independence and its status. I
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: think there have been some issues with it.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: But you're independent, aren't you?
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: Well, I don't have the authority of Parliament behind me.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: You're looking at trying to get bipartisanship.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: What about the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment?
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: Yes, well, his role is not specific to climate change,
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: but he, I mean, that has been a very effective
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: body too. This is much, it's much bigger, I think,
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: than that it does deserve its own body. That's not
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: to say that it's necessarily working as well as it should.
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: And I think there are, there has been a bit
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: of a problem within the commission of a degree of
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: groupthink around the targets. And they haven't done a good
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: job on methane. They've taken a very entrenched position on methane.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: I think that's, with more diversity in the commissions, thinking
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: would be helpful. But that's all fixable. And I think
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: also another aspect of the signal that we'll get, if
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: you abandon your one big independent body, it's not a
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: very good signal to the rest of the world. So
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: my view would be it's an important role. Where there
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: are shortcomings, it can be fixed.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Fix it, don't break it. Dr Adrian Macy, good to
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: have you on the programme this morning. He's always adjunct
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: professor at the New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live
• 3:50
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• 3:53
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