Former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (as seen in the above screengrab from Parliament’s video recording), during her 36-minute valedictory statement on April 5, allocated a portion of her farewell message to the issue of climate change.
“When I came here 15 years ago, we talked about climate change as if it were almost a hypothetical,” recalled Ardern as part of her final speech at the House of Representatives. “Some didn’t even give it that credit. In 2008, I sat in that lobby as the emissions trading scheme was weakened, and the yo-yo of climate policy continued.
“But in the intervening years, we have seen first-hand the reality of our changing environment, from Northland to Coromandel, Tokomaru Bay to Buller, and I’ve seen the people it’s impacted, like the elderly couple on the West Coast who had lived in their home for their entire married lives. They had only recently returned to it after a year’s worth of post-flooding repairs when it was flooded again. ‘We’re too old to keep doing this’, they told me. They’ve not returned to their home.”
Ardern’s resignation as Prime Minister was announced on January 19, about a week before the Auckland Anniversary floods and less than a month prior to Cyclone Gabrielle’s arrival.
The ex-PM went on to say before Easter: “Now, I know there is politics in almost everything. This Chamber understands why more than anyone. But we also know when and how to remove it. When crisis has landed in front of us, I have seen the best of this place: an absolute focus on the care of others, on preserving life, and helping people when they need it most.
“Climate change is a crisis. It is upon us, and so one of the very few things I will ask of this House on my departure is that you please take the politics out of climate change. There will always be policy differences, but beneath that we have what we need to make the progress we must.”
Ardern, who has been appointed as Special Envoy for the Christchurch Call effective April 17, also took time to highlight where the country stands in terms of its net-zero aspirations.
“We have not just a credible but an ambitious nationally determined contribution (NDC) to reduce our net emissions by 50% by 2030,” she said in her address. “We have the Zero Carbon Act, carbon budgets, an emissions reduction plan, and a Climate Commission to guide us. We have business on board and the primary sector working hard on a shared set of goals, and it’s making a difference.
“We are starting to see our emissions come down, with total greenhouse gas emissions falling to their lowest levels in eight years. But New Zealand needs this place to provide them with certainty that you will keep going – so do. We owe it to the next generation, but we also owe it to ourselves.”
As noted in a report in January, New Zealand ranks 33rd globally when it comes to climate action. A separate Climate Action Tracker (CAT) has classified the country as highly insufficient at meeting Paris Agreement targets.
“The CAT rates New Zealand’s climate targets, policies, and finance as ‘highly insufficient’,” reads the assessment (which was completed before Cyclone Gabrielle hit) seen by Insurance Business. “The ‘highly insufficient’ rating indicates that New Zealand’s climate policies and commitments are not stringent enough to limit warming to 1.5°C and need substantial improvements.
“New Zealand’s NDC target is rated ‘critically insufficient’ when compared with its fair share contribution to climate action and ‘insufficient’ when compared to modelled domestic pathways. Its policies and action do not put it on track to meet this target, and its climate finance is inadequate.”
Meanwhile, just as Ardern’s resignation came as a shock, big names in insurance are making headlines for cutting their ties with the United Nations-convened Net-Zero Insurance Alliance (NZIA).
At the end of March, reinsurance giant Munich Re revealed having discontinued its NZIA membership.
At the time, chief executive Joachim Wenning explained: “In our view, the opportunities to pursue decarbonisation goals in a collective approach among insurers worldwide without exposing ourselves to material antitrust risks are so limited that it is more effective to pursue our climate ambition to reduce global warming individually.”
Within a week, Zurich Insurance Group followed suit with its own departure – prompting global advocacy coalition Insure Our Future to point to insurers’ “even bigger direct responsibility” to align with a credible 1.5°C pathway.
While the exits don’t appear to be political in nature, it remains to be seen whether others are going to stay put or head for the door.
For Insure Our Future, all relevant stakeholders in the realm of climate action – from businesses to governments – need to urgently scale up their efforts to avert what was described as an “unmanageable climate breakdown”.
Allianz boss Oliver Bäte recently called climate change a “here and now” problem.
“This is why we must take action today,” said Bäte.
Ardern, meanwhile, believes – now more than ever – that climate change “would define our generation of politicians”.
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