“WE SPENT 25 YEARS DOING VIRTUALLY NOTHING”
HELEN PLUME’S grandchildren live next door to her home in Plimmerton, 30 minutes north of central Wellington, and often wander in to see her, but for two weeks in August, she asked them not to come knocking at the door in the afternoons. She couldn’t be disturbed because she had to discuss the future of the planet.
Plume has taken part in almost every international climate meeting on behalf of New Zealand in the past three decades. She is the head of our delegation to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations body that releases regular assessments of the state of the climate. The recent deliberations were held virtually, and she spent 10 nights in 12-hour Zoom marathons in her small home office at the end of the hallway. As she helped negotiate detailed descriptions of how our planet has already changed, it was clear that the future her grandchildren will inherit hinges on decisions we make now.
In its starkest warning yet, the IPCC confirmed that only steep, fast and lasting cuts to greenhouse gas emissions can prevent global warming from creeping irretrievably beyond 1.5°C. Since its first report in 1990, the IPCC’s progressively more certain projections have now materialised in the devastating realities of deadly heatwaves and floods, rising seas and melting ice.
IN 1990, NEW ZEALAND’S EMISSIONS OF CARBON DIOXIDE WERE ALMOST NET ZERO — THE GOAL WE ARE NOW STRUGGLING TO RECLAIM.
Plume has also long led New Zealand’s emissions inventory, a detailed account of greenhouse gas emissions from each sector, updated each year — and a record of how badly the country has failed to tackle climate change so far.
Of 45 industrialised nations, 34 have managed to reduce their gross emissions — that is, the total amount of greenhouse gases they produce. A smaller group, including the United Kingdom and Germany, have brought emissions well below 1990 levels. New Zealand is part of the remaining number whose gross emissions have increased between 1990 and 2019, by 26 per cent, despite our high share of renewable electricity. Our net emissions — which take into account the carbon-storing capacity of forests and soil — are no better. By that measure, New Zealand is fourth from the bottom, with a 34 per cent rise since 1990. On a per-capita basis — the standard we often use to trumpet cross-country comparisons and Olympic medal tallies — our gross emissions are more than twice the global average.
And there’s no sign yet of a consistent, let alone permanent, decline. Last December, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern declared a climate emergency. But imports of low-grade coal are expected to reach a record high this year, to make up for lower-than-usual rainfall at hydropower lakes and dropping natural gas supply.
New Zealand’s 2019 Zero Carbon Act requires us to reach net zero emissions for long-lived greenhouse gases
