Commentary: The take-home from our survey of political parties on climate mitigation and energy systems was that, troublingly, party policies demonstrate political polarisation on energy and climate and a failure from many parties to meaningfully respond to climate change. However, support for increasing the uptake of solar is shared across the political spectrum, say Associate Professor Caroline Shaw and Professor Simon Hales.
Background
Moving to a low carbon energy system is a critical transformation for Aotearoa New Zealand, not least of all to protect and improve public health. Energy use is responsible for 38 percent of national greenhouse gas emissions in the most recent accounting, of which about half is from transport, and another 16 percent from electricity generation.
Policymakers well understood how to move to a low carbon energy system. However, the way we move to this is important for health and wellbeing. There are a range of policy options, and different approaches will have varying impacts on social, economic and other outcomes. For example, different approaches to low carbon transport will have diverse impacts on how, and how much, we travel, our health, how much money the health system spends and how fair our society is.
We asked political parties to describe their policies for NZ energy systems and climate mitigation, with two short yes/no questions on e-bikes and climate diplomacy, and one open-ended question for them to describe their approach and any other specific policies (Box 1).
Te Pāti Māori, Labour, the Greens and New Zealand First responded to our questions. Act and National declined to respond to the survey. For these parties, we have based our analysis on their recent policy decisions and publicly available information.
Solar: This election’s must-have policy
Thanks to energetic and effective lobbying by a range of organisations and skyrocketing energy prices, part of an ongoing cost-of-living crisis, most parties now have a policy around rooftop or household solar.
National, Labour, Opportunity, and the Greens all have supportive solar policies. The policies are all broadly financial, involving a range of loans and/or subsidies, which would reduce the upfront cost of installing rooftop solar with or without batteries. The policies differ somewhat by how much they are targeted, for example, for low-income households (Labour) and public housing (Greens) vs any households (National).
Te Pāti Māori and NZ First did not provide specific policies at this stage but are generally supportive. Act does not yet have an energy policy, but party leader David Seymour’s recent speech suggests support would be related to changing rules rather than subsidies.
Solar is a great example of a policy that will achieve multiple aims; reducing the cost of energy (albeit this will vary depending on approach and benefits may not be shared equitably) and further decarbonising the energy system.
Specific policy levers would need to be included to incentivise landlords to put in solar on rental properties to avoid renters being stuck with higher energy bills.
E-bike policy: a missed opportunity
Like solar power, e-bikes have upfront costs that most people find prohibitive. However, e-biking for transport reduces greenhouse gas emissions and has many other benefits for the communities and the country. These include reducing transport costs, reducing healthcare demand through improved physical and mental health improving local environments, reducing local crime and reducing congestion.
For example, the cost of diabetes medication and the number of admissions to hospitals of people with diabetes could be reduced by a targeted e-bike policy for people with pre-existing diabetes. Like solar, e-bikes are not a silver bullet, but an important component of a move to a low carbon energy system.
The Greens were the only party to provide a specific policy on e-bikes, although Te Pāti Māori, Opportunity and Labour indicated they were supportive, while NZ First stated general support for active transport. The position of National and Act is not clear, but likely not supportive, given the defunding of active transport in the last three years.
Paris Agreement: Act and NZ First would make NZ international outlier
National, Labour, Te Pāti Māori, Opportunity and the Greens are committed to staying in the Paris Agreement. Act and NZ First would withdraw from it. Should this happen, NZ would be an international outlier, with Iran, Libya and Yemen the only countries not to have ratified the agreement and USA withdrawing.
Act would get rid of the Net Zero Act and climate policy infrastructure such as the Climate Change Commission and “benchmark New Zealand’s emissions cap against major trading partners”.
NZ First said it would withdraw from Paris and recommence gas and oil exploration and mining domestically which they claim, without evidence, will ensure “economic sovereignty and security”.
For the parties that would remain in Paris; to date, apart from the Greens, few of them have outlined comprehensive plans that would allow us to achieve its goals. Labour has committed to reviewing the ETS to make it more effective but has notably stepped away from pricing agricultural emissions (agriculture accounts for about half of NZ greenhouse emissions).
National has cut all effective climate policy in the last three years, at least in part because of pressure from their coalition partners. Act and National did not respond to our request for their policies, probably because they estimated it was politically expedient to stay silent.
Their published policies are strongly aligned with fossil fuel and dairy industry interests. Their stated intention to sign contracts for a liquified natural gas import terminal before the election is particularly divisive. The OECD and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment have concluded that importing LNG is an expensive answer to a problem which is better solved by planned renewable energy generation.
Summing up
Through this survey, it is not possible to model the emissions impacts of all party policies. However, we can see the big picture approaches from parties, which give us an indication of how far and in what direction parties are proposing to take NZ.
Although there is broad agreement that more solar generation is needed, parties’ approaches to energy and climate mitigation indicate an increasing polarisation on these issues.
On the right, National, Act and NZ First are campaigning on commitments to facilitating more generation of fossil fuels, including coal mining. Along with parties on the left, NZ First and Opportunity share a desire to improve public and active transport, which is positive.
However, there appears to be little political will to address agricultural emissions and, despite public statements on climate change, few have comprehensive plans to dramatically reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.
Associate Professor Caroline Shaw and Professor Simon Hales are based in the Department of Public Health, University of Otago, Wellington.
This is an abridged version of a Public Health Communication Centre Briefing available at https://www.phcc.org.nz/briefing/election-2026-political-polarisation-energy-and-climate-except-solar along with the full political party responses to the survey.
This piece was first published on Newsroom on 25 September, 2026