The UN says we've reached "the era of global boiling". Given that, you'd think climate might have got more of a mention from the media as the National Party released its road-heavy $24 billion transport package.
Cracks have appeared in concrete barriers on the Pūhoi to Warkworth motorway after recent storms. Photo: Screenshot / Checkpoint
Last week, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a grave warning.
"The era of global warming has ended. The era of global boiling has begun."
That sounds like a relatively serious issue.
So it was slightly surprising that the subject didn't seem to be on our reporters’ minds as the National Party announced its policy on one of the country’s biggest and fastest-growing sources of carbon emissions: transport.
There were no questions on climate put to the party’s top brass as they unveiled their $24 billion transport package in Hamilton on Monday.
Only one question on the topic was put to prime minister Chris Hipkins in his weekly media standup later that afternoon.
That's particularly perplexing given National’s policy is heavy on roads, lighter on public transport, and virtually weightless on walking and cycling.
Thankfully news organisations did start to address that potential drawback as the week wore on.
On RNZ’s Morning Report, Guyon Espiner asked National’s transport spokesperson Simeon Brown how the party's plan addresses the "elephant in the room" - climate change.
"What we're doing here is we're saying we've got to focus on making sure we have high-quality safe modern roading connections around our country.
"What ultimately drives on those roads is going to change dramatically over the coming decades. We're going to have hydrogen trucks. We're going to have electric trucks in much greater numbers."
Brown later got some backup from Dom Kalasih of Transport New Zealand, which lobbies on behalf of road haulage companies.
"Better movement of freight - which is what these better roads will do - is good for climate," he said.
Question asked and answered, or so it seemed.
Other reporters cast a more sceptical eye on those claims.
Over at Newsroom, senior political reporter Marc Daalder projected that the highway-heavy transport package would generate an additional 327,000 tonnes of carbon emissions.
That figure was based on projections outlining the induced demand from the new roads.
In short, just as releasing a new iPhone leads people to buy new phones, building a shiny new highway gets people driving and pumping out more exhaust fumes.
Over at Stuff, climate reporter Olivia Wannan cited the same effect in a piece casting doubt on claims that the transport package would reduce congestion in the longer term.
On Radio Waatea, Auckland University architecture and planning lecturer Tim Welch said the congestion-easing effects of new roads generally wears off within a few years.
"And we're back where we started or sometimes even worse with congestion. So the better route is to find ways for people to not have to drive and make those trips more efficient so we're not putting as many cars on the road."
Under the Emissions Reductions Plan, which is designed to meet the country’s commitments in the Paris Agreement, New Zealand is targeting a 41 percent cut to transport emissions by 2035.
On RNZ’s Morning Report on Thursday, Welch told Ingrid Hipkiss spending most of the transport budget on new roads wouldn’t cut it when it comes to hitting that goal.
"I don't see a policy that has a clear path yet
On his podcast The Kaka, Bernard Hickey was more blunt, saying National (and likely Labour if they announce a policy) are ignoring those climate obligations.
He said that could put the country at risk of failing to meet its obligations under the Paris Agreement – something the Treasury says would cost the country $20 billion.
In the Weekend Herald, Fran O'Sullivan also pointed out our Nationally Determined Contribution under the Paris Agreement obliges us to cut emissions by 147 million tonnes this decade.
"The upshot of successive government policies is that New Zealand will face a bill of possibly up to $10b to buy sufficient carbon offsets this decade," she wrote.
"Given the economic and moral imperatives - and this is a rocky financial period for New Zealand - this country has only one choice: fundamentally, reduce emissions," she said.
There’s an argument that at least a part of this is moot.
Transport is in the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and its advocates point out that any extra carbon pumped out by the new highways should be offset by cuts in other sectors, in what’s known as the waterbed effect.
Others argue real life doesn’t always perfectly align with those sorts of models, and the ETS may not always fully compensate for structurally embedded emissions from stuff like roading.
No matter what, it's an important discussion and arguably one that should be front and centre whenever our parties announce policies which impact on climate change.
The coverage we got on the climate effects of National’s transport plan was genuinely illuminating, and in the end pretty extensive.
But it was often shunted to the end of bulletins, the last question of interviews, or to analysis pieces in slightly more niche publications.
Our major news organisations have all acknowledged that human-caused climate change is real. They've called it the biggest story in the world.
It would be nice if that was reflected in their editorial practice when the rubber meets the road, or the four-lane highway from Whangarei to Tauranga.
