Kerre Woodham: Give me pragmatism over idealism any day

The Government is no longer on track to meet its third emissions budget according to projections, and unless we meet those Paris commitments, billions of dollars could be sent offshore to pay for international climate mitigation. We failed to meet our budget. We failed to complete the plan and therefore we will be punished. Very bad news.

But guess what? As of December 2023, not a single G20 country had policies in place that are consistent with their own commitments to the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global heating to 1.5% and meeting their fair share of emissions reductions. Eight G20 countries would be rated as critically insufficient, which is just woeful and pathetic, and we can't expect anything of them - that would be Argentina, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Turkey, Canada, Mexico and Indonesia. Some of those are very wealthy countries. Some of those have resources that they could put towards addressing the climate emergency. Have they done so? Nope, haven't even looked like it. Critically insufficient. It means their climate policies and commitments reflect minimal to no action. You know, you could understand it if we're talking about a country in the developing world that has been unable to meet its climate change commitments. You know, it's a lot to put in infrastructure to change the way you heat communities or the way you get energy to a community. So you could imagine countries in developing parts of the world. But no. Canada, quite wealthy South Korea, pretty wealthy too. Mexico and Indonesia, no, they don't care. It's the only thing you can draw from that really.

Then we've got China, Brazil, Australia, the EU and the UK - they're highly insufficient. So they haven't done enough either. Way off target. So when we hear that we're really bad and we've failed to meet our budget and what a dreadful country of polluters we are, we're not alone on the naughty step. And it doesn't mean, of course, that we shouldn't be doing all we reasonably can to reduce harmful emissions. It doesn't mean that we just stick two fingers and go you know what, we're not going to follow the best science and we're not going to follow the best practice we're just going to pollute away. It doesn't mean that at all, and certainly the Government doesn't have its head in the sand.

“We've tried to do as much as we can to simplify this plan. Our plan this time is shorter. It's more concise. It's focused on the big dots that are going to move us in the right direction, and that's around doubling renewables. It's about the work that we're doing around giving farmers a tool to reduce emissions in the ag space. And you know, we're confident that our plan is going to allow us to get to the targets that we're seeing. It's going to be challenging, but we're being pragmatic around the process to get there.”

Beautiful word, pragmatic. There it is. Pragmatism. Fabulous. It really gets my goat that you've got children who are hysterical because they believe the world will be in flames as a result of what heartless, thoughtless, crass generations have done. And yet, actually, the planet itself will be fine. We might pollute our own selves out of existence a few turns of the earth ahead. But seriously when they are shouting in the streets about what we need to do and how this is the nuclear moment and let's all get out there ... seriously, the key word in what Simon Watts was saying was pragmatic. Let's do all we reasonably can.

The sentence in the story that resonated with me too is that the government is keen to ensure reducing emissions does not come at the expense of growth. We just have to do it smarter. We can do it. We don't have to do it in the old ways, children, but we don't hobble ourselves. Because if we want to pay the police more, we need to be wealthier. We want better hospitals, as a country, we have to earn more, and handicapping ourselves right now to look virtuous in the eyes of the world, who do not care, it will not serve us well.

You could have the young people looking at Scandinavia. They've got women on the boards and they've got equality within society and they're highly taxed. Yeah, because they're really, really highly waged. Everybody lauds the Scandinavian countries as being the gold standard on almost every indicator worth measuring, from public health to educational attainment, to social well-being, the Scandinavians have got it on. And that's because they've grown wealthy on extractive industries. They used to be primitive. They used to be subsistence-type economies. Until they realised hang on a minute, we've got stuff that people want. And their economic success is basically based on extractive industries. Norway's oil, Sweden's iron ore, Finland's forests, huge carbon footprints but what the hey? They're wealthy. They're generous. Their people, have a great time. They enjoy high educational wellbeing, they enjoy superior health outcomes cause they're rich. And everybody says ooh look at Scandinavia and nobody says, ooh, look at dirty, filthy, polluting extractive Scandinavia, do they?

You can only afford to be generous when you've got the income to do so. So, give me a realistic, pragmatic plan over pie in the sky, idealism any day of the week.

Kerre McIvor, is a journalist, radio presenter, author and columnist. Currently hosts the Kerre Woodham mornings show on Newstalk ZB - where this article was sourced.