Charismatic St Jacinda’s climate crusade charade

Scott Morrison is hosting Jacinda Ardern in Sydney on Friday for the annual Australia-New Zealand Leaders’ Meeting. It’s usually a low-key gathering to discuss regional security, international trade and co-operation in the Pacific. How best to co-ordinate action on the coronavirus outbreak is top of the bilateral agenda. The leaders appear to have a solid working relationship, as is the way for trans-Tasman affairs. The Black Summer bushfires and the deadly Whakaari/White Island eruption in New Zealand showed how well Mr Morrison and Ms Ardern collaborate. In the wake of the Christchurch terrorist attack being live-streamed and replicated on Facebook, Mr Morrison led an effort at the G20 leaders’ summit to press online platforms to do more to protect users.

A year after Christchurch, New Zealand’s Prime Minister is enjoying global attention, with Time asking on its latest cover how will the millennial political rock star use the moment. “Know us by our deeds,” she told the news magazine. Yet actions at home have yet to match the promises she has made on the world stage. This gap is most pronounced on climate policy. Last August Ms Ardern said Australia had “to ­answer to the Pacific” for its position on ­climate change. She did not mention, conveniently, New Zealand is forecast to fail to meet its Paris target to ­reduce emissions by 30 per cent of 2005 levels by 2030. By contrast Australia is on track to meet its 26 per cent to 28 per cent reduction target, with or without Kyoto carry-over credits. New Zealand failed to meet first-round Kyoto targets and did not sign up to Kyoto for 2020.

That hasn’t stopped Kiwis from talking a big game on CO2 emissions or castigating nations they see as laggards. At last year’s Pacific Islands Forum in Tuvalu, Ms Ardern asked Mr Morrison to back a UN push for a carbon-­neutral economy by 2050, declaring every ­nation had to “do its bit” to fight global warming. Yet New Zealand has excluded agriculture and methane from its carbon-neutral pledge. That is cute, if not convenient, given agricultural products and meat are New Zealand’s major exports, accounting for 40 per cent of sales. Agriculture makes up half of its CO2 emissions. On Thursday senator Matt Canavan argued online that New Zealand’s “brave” target, welcomed by environmental activist groups, was “literally an example of doing things by half”. Even with some heroic assumptions (a methane vaccine for sheep), official modelling shows net zero emissions by 2050 would smash New Zealand’s agriculture and shrink its economy by 10 to 20 per cent.

Still, it’s the vibe and sound bite that count for some. St Jacinda is the embodiment of activism, globalism and wellness. Among the Green left there’s a bit of PM envy going on — if only Ms Ardern could rule Australia, the world! First, however, she’ll need to turn her charms to her home country, where she is seeking a second term in September. Kiwis gripe that Ms Ardern’s Labour has not delivered on major promises. It pledged to build 100,000 high-quality, low-income houses over a decade via the KiwiBuild program; so far the tally is 315 houses. Ending child poverty may be as elusive for Ms Ardern as it was for Bob Hawke four decades ago. The measure of national success would be broadened beyond GDP, to take into account environmental, social and economic sustainability, a matrix that is attracting interest from Labor here.

But hard numbers matter for voters and the New Zealand economy is going sideways. GDP is growing at a touch above 2 per cent. The small trading nation, dependent on China, will be rocked by a drying up of tourists due to the COVID-19 outbreak and a slide in global demand for its exports. Ms Ardern is tethered to periodic shocks from her “coalition of losers” partners. New Zealand First leader Winston Peters, a deputy prime minister from the Barnaby Joyce school of parochial populism and deportment, will tug Labour one way. The Greens, fixated on cannabis legalisation and carbon neutrality, whatever the cost, will push the other way. No doubt Mr Morrison will provide a warm welcome, perhaps giving his Kiwi colleague a private run-through on the imminent technology road map he is betting his emissions credibility on. One thing you can be sure about, Australia won’t be goading its Tasman cousins about the hypocrisy of their climate postures or trying to steal the Kiwi leader’s global limelight.