New Zealand's abandonment of the Carbon Neutral Public Service program

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Birchall, S. Jeff

• In 2009, New Zealand’s (NZ) new National-led government abandoned the Carbon Neutral Public Service (CNPS) program, a Labour-led government initiative intended to help Government achieve carbon neutrality within its core agencies. This short analysis article provides an overview and brief assessment of the CNPS initiative. Drawing on relevant scholarly literature and public documents relating to NZ’s climate change agenda, this paper finds that while the CNPS program suffered from a range of challenges, it nonetheless was demonstrating results. This paper also highlights that while the Labour-led government was keen to act on climate change mitigation, under the National-led government, NZ is no longer aiming to lead on carbon neutrality. Policy relevance: As climate change mitigation policy continues to feature prominently on government agendas, it is important to understand the ethos and ambition of national programs designed to lead in thisarea. This is particularly relevant during times of political change, as demonstrated in NZ, where public sector carbon neutrality vanished with the out-going Labour-led government. This paper provides a brief analysis of the CNPS program, and highlights the National-led government’s direction on climate change mitigation.

• Date created

  2014

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Carbon neutral
  • Climate change policy
  • New Zealand
  • Government organizations

• Type of Item

  Article (Published)

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3FQ9QK2T

• License

  © 2014 Taylor & Francis. This version of this article is open access and can be downloaded and shared. The original author(s) and source must be cited.