Shaw JamesMINISTERIAL STATEMENTSClimate Change—Report of the Climate Change CommissionHon JAMES SHAW (Minister of Climate Change): I wish to make a ministerial statement relating to the release of the Climate Change Commission's report Ināia tonu nei: a low emissions future for Aotearoa. SPEAKER: Just keep going.Hon JAMES SHAW: Thank you Mr Speaker. Earlier today I tabled the advice in Parliament that the Government has received from the politically independent science-led Climate Change Commission on the total amount of global warming pollution Aotearoa New Zealand must cut over the next 15 years. The commission's advice also provides an achievable affordable and technologically feasible blueprint for achieving this. As members read through the advice in the coming days and weeks there are four main points to keep in mind. They are that addressing the climate crisis is achievable it is affordable it offers huge opportunities for improved wellbeing and innovation and that it must be planned in a fair and equitable way and honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Starting with the targets themselves I'd like to take each of these in turn. The Climate Change Commission says that our climate change targets are achievable and can be met with existing technology but only if we act now. Over the last 3½ years this Government has laid the foundations from which the commission is now asking us to build. This will help to ensure a sustained decline in the pollution that we put into the atmosphere and it will mean future Governments can ensure that this decline continues and in fact picks up pace every year until we hit net zero. The commission is also clear that taking the action required of us is affordable. According to the world's leading scientists we must cut global emissions in half by 2030 to have any chance of staying within the 1.5 degrees Celsius global warming threshold. That is now less than nine years away. If we delay action for another year that drops to eight but the size of the effort doesn't get any smaller. We still have to cut the same amount of pollution whether we do it in seven years or eight or nine if we start today. Every year of delay makes the effort harder and more expensive than if we just get on with it right now. Those calling for delay as they always do are in fact calling for higher costs and greater economic disruption than is necessary and the commission makes that clear. It predicts that delaying action would cost us 2.3 percent of GDP—almost double the cost to our economy of acting now. The third point is to draw members' attention to the opportunities within our grasp. A zero-carbon economy will create cleaner more vibrant and healthier communities in every part of our economy. It will connect our towns and cities with frequent and fast trains and buses and roads freer of congestion. It will create green jobs that pay people enough to provide for their families and put a roof over their heads. It will support innovation new business opportunities and new investment in clean-tech high-value industries. It will benefit people's health because of warmer drier homes more walking and cycling and less air pollution. When the commission released its draft advice in January I said that I had never felt more confident that a climate-friendly healthy and prosperous future for New Zealand was within reach and I still feel the same today. Finally though the commission's advice makes clear the overall benefit to New Zealand of the transition to a lower-emissions future it does say that the impacts will not necessarily be evenly felt. There will be people up and down the country wondering what the transition means for their families and for their livelihoods. On this the commission presses upon the Government the need to plan our transition in a fair equitable and inclusive way. This includes working in partnership with iwi Māori and local communities and signalling policies well in advance to give everyone time to plan. The first chance the Government will have to show that we are equal to the challenge that the Climate Change Commission has set us will come with the setting of the first three emissions budgets and the emissions reduction plan. This plan will need to include policies and strategies that cut across every sector of the economy including agriculture and forestry transport building and construction waste and heat industry and power. It will also look at the changes needed across the finance system infrastructure and planning and emissions pricing. We will consult on the plan and there will be opportunities for members to consider the emissions budgets. In doing so I hope that they will take heed of the commission's point that some issues are too big for politics and in turn the calls for cross-party consensus from business and local communities. To close I'd like to take the opportunity to thank the commission for their hard work their analytical honesty and their rigour. What they have achieved with their advice will have a lasting impact on the type of planet that our children inherit from us. Nō reira tēnā koutou tēnā koutou tēnā tātou katoa.