Why Climate Change Minister James Shaw made a podcast
Climate Change Minister James Shaw has turned podcaster, interviewing economist Joseph Stiglitz, Doughnut Economics author Kate Raworth, author Naomi Klein and Costa Rican diplomat Christiana Figueres, who led the 2015 climate talks, about how to have a green recovery following the coronavirus pandemic . Speaking to Stuff today, Shaw said hes confident the "shovel-ready" projects being fast-tracked for the Covid-19 recovery won't lock New Zealand into a high-emissions future. Yet with a further $20 billion stimulus still to be allocated, both this government and the next will face high-stakes choices about what to do with the money. The independent Climate Change Commission has already warned New Zealand will never meet its emissions obligations if this once-in-a lifetime spending doesn't set us on a low-carbon path. The commission told the government its latest Budget did not do enough . Stuff asked Shaw about the recovery spending and his venture into podcasting . (The interview has been shortened and edited for clarity). 1. Where did the podcast idea come from? James Shaw: It came up during Level 4 lockdown. A big part of my job is to travel and meet people and communicate, and I obviously couldnt do that during lockdown. But the need to communicate stayed the same, so we were thinking about ways to do that. Because I wasn't travelling, I had time to do these recordings, which I normally wouldn't. One thing I've become really aware of in the last few years is that part of the resistance (to greening the economy) in New Zealand is that we tend to look to our own experience and say, you can't grow and develop the economy and reduce emissions at the same time, because we never have. Yet there are counties out there that have done that. Progress is being made in leaps and bounds around the world and I wanted to bring that outside perspective in. 2. Your guests (Joseph Stiglitz, Kate Raworth and others) are all keen on strong climate action, and they have ideas about how to do it. Who are you trying to persuade here, Cabinet or voters? The audience is people who think there might be another way of rebuilding after the pandemic crisis, but are unsure how that might play out. If you look back on history we have an economic crisis on average every ten years....although nothing of course comes even close to the order of magnitude we are facing with the Covid-19 pandemic crisis. But when those crises occur, governments step in to try to keep things going and resuscitate the economy. Historically the response has been to make things go back to the way they were before. The problem we have got is that then stalls any action on climate change, because the status quo was a highly-polluting carbon-intensive economy that was leading to a climate crisis. We know the world needs to at least halve our carbon dioxide emissions in the next 10 years. We cannot afford to restore it to the status quo - it has to be a different economy afterwards. I wanted to engage with progressive thinkers on this. Joseph Stiglitz was talking about a green new deal after the last global financial crisis and countries like South Korea and Costa Rica adopted that, and they're in a better position now, but very few others did. 3. Who paid for this and how did you persuade the guests to appear? Nobody charged. Everybody asked did it out of the generosity of their hearts and I think that is because there is an awareness around the world that this is a critical moment in our history. If we miss this opportunity we've effectively blown it. 4. In the first episode - the one out now - Joseph Stiglitz talked about the need to support middle income earners, to keep them spending, but he also said he supports a universal basic income in these unusual times of crisis. Given the blow-up in the news yesterday about New Zealand's two-tier benefit system, do you think your government's approach to benefits goes against what some of these thinkers are saying? The Green Party has been saying for some time we need a total overhaul of the benefit system. It's not just about benefit levels, although that's part of it, but the design principles. A guaranteed basic income is a more universalist approach that would be more in line with what Professor Stiglitz is saying, and we havent had a proper debate about that in New Zealand, which I think is a shame because you have some strong thinkers like Max Rashbrooke , who has been saying the opposite - why would you give a millionaire $1000 a week when government revenues have fallen through the floor? So he's advocating something more targeted - a guaranteed minimum income that goes to the people who need it. Its still bloody expensive, but everything right now is that expensive because of the scale of what were facing. 5. I get the sense the benefit policy is not quite what the Greens would have wanted, will you use your voting power to change it? The problem we have is, we're a minority in Parliament. We've got eight MPs and we've done some fantastic things with those eight...but if you look at the balance of parties [those] who tend to be against welfare reform, form a majority. And within the government, NZ First is able to act as a block. That's just the reality. As we get into the election campaign you will see a competition of ideas about what the rebuild post-Covid looks like. 6. On that - there is massive focus on this $20b still left to spend on the recovery. People who are concerned about climate change have been worried about the amount of spending on roads versus other things. But the remaining money won't all be spent by the current Government, will it? No. The money has to keep us going until next year's Budget. The point of having that contingency is to allow the government to react to circumstances as they arise. So you dont want to blow the whole lot in the next two months because it doesn't leave any flexibility for the remainder of the financial year. You may well see some announcements before the election, but Id imagine most of it will be held in reserve for the period between September and April. 7. Did anything come out of these podcasts that surprised you? These are obviously thinkers you were already a fan of. Is this just a chance to display their thoughts, or did they say some things that made you think Ugh, ok. A bit of both. Im obviously familiar with where most of them are coming from and I thought, here is an opportunity to get some of that thinking into the New Zealand discourse. Within New Zealand we can be a bit insular....there are experiences from around the world that can really stretch us. But there were things, for example Joseph Stiglitz was talking about helicopter money (no-questions-asked cash payments to boost incomes) - this is someone who used to advise Bill Clinton on economic policy, and he was advocating something we might consider a bit radical....That kind of idea isnt widely discussed as one of the options in New Zealand, but to some extent that is what the government is doing right now with things like the wage subsidy, or the (benefits) package announced yesterday. The threshold people need to meet is so much more relaxed than in a business as usual, pre Covid world, where we are deeply suspicious of people on welfare. Now (more) people are on welfare, our level of suspicion has dropped remarkably. 8. Stiglitz is very critical of what he sees as a lack of a plan in the United States, for example the U.S. Government bailing out airlines without any conditions attached regarding cutting their emissions. He's very complimentary of New Zealand. From the outside, though, it's not clear this government has a plan for this spending either, regarding the climate. We're hearing the Climate Change Commission and others saying we need official, transparent criteria putting some kind of climate bottom line on this spending. Is that going to happen? I agree with that, I think its critical and as Climate Change Minister Ive been saying that to everybody who'll listen and quite a few who wont. Will it happen? I think youll see it start to emerge in different ways in different areas. For example, the shovel-ready projects that the Infrastructure Reference Group and (reference group head) Mark Binns have been leading over the last six weeks, I know that has been a big part of their thinking in terms of which projects make the most sense. They are looking at job intensity, which is the whole point, and which regions are most affected, but also saying it doesn't make sense to engage in projects which lock in a high emissions pathway. We have a choice of projects here, so it makes sense to direct that money to things that don't. 9. So that $3b is not going to go on coal-fired boilers? No it is not. I can guarantee. 10. We might get a bunch of roads though? Cabinet hasnt made any decisions yet so it would be remiss of me to say, but Im feeling pretty confident.