By Peter Wilson
If bets could be laid on New Zealand's chances of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent on 1990 levels by 2020, the odds would be extremely high.
Climate Change Minister Nick Smith is offering between 10 percent and 20 percent as a commitment in the latest round of international negotiations to set targets for reductions around the world.
It is likely to end up at around 15 percent, which would fit in with National's pre-election position of achieving a 50 percent reduction on 1990 levels by 2050.
But the figures are deceptive, because the Government has been shackled with an unpleasant legacy.
The previous Labour government said it was committed to reducing emissions and former prime minister Helen Clark went so far as to set a goal of New Zealand becoming the first carbon neutral country in the world.
But emissions since 1990 didn't decrease and during the terms of the last two governments they actually increased by 24 percent.
That turns a 15 percent target into a 39 percent target in real terms.
Scientific opinion is that a 40 percent reduction on 1990 levels is the least the world can afford if it is to avoid serious climate change.
In New Zealand's case, that would mean an impossible real target of 64 percent.
The European Union, on the other hand, has managed to already reduce emissions by 10 percent on 1990 levels so any target it sets for 2020 will be much more easily achievable.
Prime Minister John Key describes the 10 percent to 20 percent target range as "credible and responsible".
Smith, who is going to be responsible for finding ways to achieve it, says it is going to be "a big ask".
They are both understating the difficulty of achieving significant reductions. Just getting back to 1990 levels -- a target the United States has set for itself -- will be a huge task.
The Government is caught between presenting something that won't make the rest of the world think New Zealand doesn't care about climate change, and managing a reduction in real terms that won't wreck the economy.
Various figures are being presented that are said to represent the cost of reducing emissions and none of them are reliable. They depend on a set of variables, not least the cost of carbon in an emissions trading regime.
Smith cites the NZIER analysis which puts it at about $1400 per person per year from 2020, or about $30 a week.
Petrol could rise between 3.7 cents a litre and 12.3 cents a litre, which shows the level of uncertainty over future cost increases.
Even Smith's relatively mild target range, however unlikely it is to become reality, horrified parts of the business sector.
The cost, said the Employers and Manufacturers Association, amounted to nearly 5 percent of GDP and was more than the total of all lamb, beef and other meat exports.
On the other side of this polarising argument, Greenpeace and the Green Party say the Government isn't aiming nearly high enough and should go for a 40 percent reduction.
The Greens have done they work and say 40 percent can be achieved "at little or no cost".
This surprising conclusion rests on reductions across the board through ways which include de-stocking in the dairy sector, shutting down coal-fired power stations, raising geothermal and wind-generated energy production, fuel economy standards for vehicles and an aggressive forest planting regime.
That all sounds a bit more than "little or no cost" but the way the Greens see it the ultimate catastrophe of severe climate change means anything less will be too little, much too late.
Smith has been accused by Labour of inflating the cost to manipulate people into thinking high targets can't be afforded, which he strongly denies.
He says the Greens are being unrealistic and underestimate the difficulties the Government faces.
"It's going to be a major challenge for New Zealand to even get back to 1990 levels," he said, which is one of the most realistic comments so far.
Assuming whatever target is eventually set in stone after international negotiations, the real test is going to be how New Zealand stacks up in 2020 against all the other countries which will have set their own goals.
The most likely scenario is that with the possible exception of the EU and the Scandinavian countries, none of them will have been able to achieve their targets.
Success is possible, but it would take a level of political will that isn't really there are the moment.
And that depends, as do most things governments have to deal with, on the extent to which the public is prepared to accept the cost.
If voters were calling for aggressive climate change policies from political parties, those policies would be offered.
If National or Labour believed that in 2011 they could be safely voted into office on a promise to cut emissions by 40 percent on 1990 levels by 2020, they would make campaign promises to do that.
That isn't going to happen during the next couple of years and probably not until the impact of climate change is much more real to voters than it is now.
NZPA