Shaw JamesCLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSE (ZERO CARBON) AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingHon JAMES SHAW (Minister for Climate Change): I move That the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Environment Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 21 October 2019.Today we begin the task of amending the Climate Change Response Act 2002 to fulfil the commitment that we have made as a country to limit global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Together with the rest of the world New Zealand faces unprecedented challenges from the effects of a changing climate. It will be ongoing and at times unyielding. In Aotearoa New Zealand it may be punctuated by more severe flooding drought coastal erosion and storm surges than we have ever seen before.Globally climate change will increase existing risks including the spread of pests and disease threats to food security and social disruption. These hazards will impact whole communities severely strain critical public infrastructure and result in unprecedented social ecological and economic losses.When these crises occur—whether it's flooding in Whanganui fires in Tasman coastal washout in Greymouth storm damage in Coromandel or droughts in Northland—we declare an emergency and we marshal the resources to respond. It is not alarmism to suggest that climate change is itself an emergency—it is the causal force driving up the frequency and severity of each of these other crises. We ought to call it what it is. We cannot say that we did not know or that we were not told. The world is on fire. The climate emergency that we are now facing will change the way we live where we live how we travel how we work and how we raise our children. Our response outlined in this bill needs to be appropriate to the scale of that challenge.The Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill before you today Madam Deputy Speaker has as its purpose to provide a framework by which New Zealand can contribute to the collective global effort to limit the increase in global average temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels as set out in article 2 of the Paris Agreement thereby significantly reducing the impacts and risks of climate change. As far as we're aware we are the first country in the world to locate that commitment to hold global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees in primary legislation.This ensures that whatever else we choose to do it must further that critical outcome—and nothing we do should undermine it. The bill will establish a climate change commission—an independent Crown entity—to provide expert advice on the transition to a low-emissions and climate-resilient New Zealand. This bill outlines an emissions reduction target for New Zealand in line with keeping global warming to under 1.5 degrees. The target has two components: it will seek to reduce our emissions of all greenhouse gases expect biogenic methane to net zero by 2050. It will also seek to reduce our gross emissions of biogenic methane within the range of 24 to 47 percent below 2017 levels by 2050 and will include an interim requirement to reduce gross emissions of biogenic methane by 10 percent below 2017 levels by 2030.Emissions budgets will act as stepping stones towards the long-term target. Each budget will state the quantity of emissions that will be permitted in a five-year period and will be supported by a plan to reduce those reductions. Taken together successive emissions budgets should define an optimal pathway towards our long-term climate objectives. Finally this bill will require the Government to have a plan for how we adapt to the effects of climate change. The commission will conduct a national climate change risk assessment every six years and in response to each assessment the bill requires the responsible Minister to produce a national adaptation plan. The bill also gives the Government power to require appropriate organisations to report information for inclusion in the national climate change risk assessments. Now since I introduced the bill to the House a number of concerns have been raised about it at hui and workshops with me and of course via the media. First should there be a limit on the extent to which the bill permeates across Government? Should it instead be able to affect the interpretation of other statutes as happens with our human rights and privacy legislation? Second should the level of legal liability be prescribed or should the bill be silent on this allowing common law norms to develop as public expectations evolve? Third should the commission be advisory only or should it have some level of decision-making powers as some have suggested? Fourth are the proposed emissions reduction targets too ambitious or too conservative given the commitment to stay within 1.5 degrees of global warming? Fifth should the bill exclude international aviation and shipping as currently proposed for consistency with the Paris Agreement or should we bring them into our domestic framework as has been done in France and as has been considered by the UK? Finally does the bill adequately address the Crown's duties under Te Tiriti o Waitangi to protect land and water and to consult and engage with iwi Māori? The feedback I've received so far suggests that these issues warrant thorough consideration by the select committee. But I want to say that the bill reflects nearly 18 months of consultation and negotiations between political parties and with farming leaders environmental NGOs businesses and iwi Māori organisations and so I wish the select committee the very best of luck. The world around us is changing. Eighteen countries have already consistently reduced their emissions over the past decade whilst their economies have continued to grow and develop. Joining those countries in the transition will ensure that New Zealand maintains and enhances our competitive advantage in a low-emissions world compared with those countries that do too little too late. Climate change policy does not need to be a trade-off between economic development and emissions reductions. In fact evidence so far suggests a correlation between reducing emissions and increasing productivity and wealth creation.The challenge of living in an emissions-constrained world is the most powerful driver of innovation I can imagine creating new technologies new industries new jobs. It is I believe the single greatest economic opportunity in at least a generation. My greatest fear is that we will let this opportunity pass us by and allow it to accrue to other bolder nations.I'd like to thank the 15000 organisations and members of the public who responded to our public consultation. In particular I would like to acknowledge the leadership shown by our nation's young people in bringing the bill to Parliament and in seeking to hold us accountable for decisions that will shape their futures. I want to thank the Prime Minister for her personal leadership on this the nuclear-free moment of our generation and the Deputy Prime Minister for his efforts in getting us to this point. I would also like to extend my gratitude to the National Party leader Simon Bridges and National's climate change spokesperson Todd Muller who put politics to one side and worked with us in good faith to try and shape a bill that could be supported across the House. This bill has a 30-year time horizon. It must survive multiple changes of Government in that time. The pressures will be even greater in the future than they are today but businesses and investors and communities and iwi need the predictability and the stable policy environment that this bill is intended to provide. The genuine attempt at consensus building during the process has shown that all sides recognise that climate change is too important for petty partisanship and politics. For as was said in a different time about a different but equally existential threat in the final analysis our most basic common link is that we all share this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futures and we are all mortal. I commend this bill to the House.