A $ 67.4 million budget to help the public sector cut carbon from cars and boilers, but what about theft?

The agency's fight against white-collar crime, the Serious Fraud Office, makes the fleet's government the cleanest in the country.

The police, on the other hand, have one of the highest emitting fleets per kilometer: they pump 192 grams of carbon dioxide, compared to 39 grams for the OFS .

Unfortunately the OFS owns a car while the police have 3,400.

Those numbers could change quickly, however: by 2025, government departments and agencies will have to buy carbon offset payments to cover global heating emissions they haven't pushed out of their operations . Schools, district health authorities and kāinga ora will also have to buy compensation at some point, although the deadline has not yet been set.

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As part of the government's plan to make public services carbon neutral by 2025 , public organizations must plan how to save fuel, remove unnecessary vehicles from their fleets, choose electric vehicles (electric vehicles) when they can, and rent large buildings.

Climate protection minister James Shaw described the compensation period for 2025 as "a little difficult for agencies".

"If you haven't been able to get your emissions off the grid by 2025, you'll have to pay for the work you haven't done," Shaw said.

But there is a carrot with this whip.

Shaw today announced a new budget of $ 67.4 million to help the public sector reduce emissions. Of this, $ 41.7 million will go to EECA to help other government agencies rent cleaner fleets of vehicles, three quarters to co-finance rental cars, and the remainder to provide advice on greening the fleet.

Rosa Woods / Stuff

Climate Protection Secretary James Shaw announced new $ 67.4 million in the budget to help the public sector reduce carbon emissions (file photo). This is likely to disappoint climate activists.

In addition, the public sector decarbonization fund, which helps schools, hospitals, and other public services move away from coal boilers and buy electric vehicles, will receive an additional $ 19.5 million. Currently the fund has raised $ 200 million, of which $ 96.4 million has already been allocated. Another $ 6 million will be used to build what Shaw has termed "capacity" - employing people at the Department of the Environment and elsewhere who can help agencies cut their carbon bills.

Climate lawyers are likely to be disappointed with the scope of the package.

A Stuff survey this week found that about 1,150 public schools burn fossil fuels to heat classrooms , including at least 200 schools that use coal . According to the Ministry of Education, 36 schools for change have been funded so far.

Erica Finnie, 350 Aotearoa, said ahead of today's announcement that the previously allocated $ 200 million would be "absolutely insufficient" if the government wanted schools to be fossil fuel free by 2025. She and other activists hoped the budget would provide a substantial amount. spice it up.

Robyn Edie / so

The Southern District Board of Health plans to convert Southland Hospital's boilers from coal to wood chips or biomass.

Coal is by far the dirtiest fossil fuel, and the government has previously said that coal boiler replacement - bigger one first - will be its "immediate goal".

Projects funded from the existing $ 200 million fund consisted primarily of coal boiler replacements. However, last week 422 new electric vehicles were announced, mostly for DOC and Kāinga Ora.

When asked if the government could justify funding electric vehicles when there were still coal boilers to heat schools, Shaw said more funding would come and that the physical process of replacing the boilers was limited.

"The funds allocated so far won't be the last time we fund decarbonisation of the public sector. There will be other things going in the future, including all the other coal boilers, diesel generators, the rest of the fleet, etc. It really gets us going. In some places ... people didn't really plan to swap out these boilers so it's a pretty long planning process for some of them, "he said.

"In the meantime we should try to replace the vehicle fleet because we said we want to do that too."

Ricky Wilson / things

The Police Fleet is one of the largest broadcasters in the public sector, but work is underway to replace uncontrolled cars with cleaner electric options.

Currently, only 1.3% of the 14,000-plus state vehicles are electric , although authorities estimate that about half of the fleet has "functional" electric vehicle options. In a previous briefing with Minister for Regional and Economic Development, Stuart Nash, it was estimated that much of the public sector could reduce its fleets by 20 percent or more, reducing the cost of switching to electricity.

Ironically, by government tally , some climate-focused agencies, like Niwa, the Department of Conservation and the New Zealand Antarctic Institute, are among the highest emissions fleets per km, like Fire and Emergency NZ is.

The cleanest artists are Stats NZ, TVNZ, some DHB, and the Department of the Treasury.

Tom Pullar-Strecker / so

Inland Revenue has a relatively clean fleet of vehicles. Firefighters, less.

Then there is the robbery. Political announcements for the climate neutral public sector focused on electric vehicles, boilers and the rental of green buildings.

However, both domestic and international flights were by far the largest source of climate impact for the four state agencies, the detailed emissions breakdown of which was given in the briefing to Nash . These agencies were EECA, Massey University, Auckland DHB, and NZ Trade and Enterprise.

Shaw said there was no need to raise funds to reduce theft as reducing theft would save the agencies money. But that didn't mean the agencies wouldn't take action against the use of flights, he said. "I know that some of these agencies, for example, are investing heavily in distributed work technology to reduce the need to travel to meetings."

ROSENWOOD

Shaw says no special resource allocation is required to reduce theft as fewer flying saves agencies money.

Although the public sector accounts for less than 1% of New Zealand's emissions, the idea is that stimulating the demand for electric vehicles, green buildings and other low-carbon goods will make these things easier and cheaper for everyone. The agencies have to measure the emissions of their suppliers as well as their direct emissions. Shaw said they would use the same measurement methods as the Climate Leaders Coalition, a group of more than 100 business leaders committed to measuring and reducing emissions, including those from suppliers. This meant that small businesses were faced with similar rules in supplying the public or private sector.

Part of the work within the ministries will be to develop a policy for the entire public sector to buy carbon offsets to offset emissions they cannot eliminate. As it stands, taxpayers could end up paying for two emission allowance packages : one to meet New Zealand's international commitments under the Paris Agreement and the other to claim that public authorities are carbon neutral.

Shaw said officials would work on a new policy, including deciding whether the compensation bought by the police and others count towards the New Zealand Paris Agreement goal. Officials must also ensure that offsets are accumulated due to environmental factors, he said, given questions about the actual climate benefits of some offsets .

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