Capital, Ideology, and the Failure of New Zealand’s Climate Policy

Abstract

Climate change is a highly problematic issue for political and social research. Political outcomes in New Zealand are shaped by strategic relations between highly emissions intensive industries (including dairy and fossil fuel energy) and the executive through an alliance that counters the influence of regulatory goals and international governance. This thesis analyses the recent development of New Zealand’s climate policy until the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and other Matters) Act Amendment Bill of November 2012. The nation’s commitments to climate management through greenhouse gas emissions reductions under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol differ markedly from the observable rate of progress towards this aim. The purpose of researching recent policy is to discover the empirical causes for this divergence and to establish theoretical implications. Methods used include Framework Analysis as the tool by which policy is analysed and conclusions are found, and the theoretical engagement with the post-Marxist paradigm. The research follows the progression of societal perception and response to climate change through comparing the policy to frames of climate change as a political issue, interest group politics, the form and problems of the contemporary liberal state, the linking of interest groups with discursive strategies, the societal representations of environmental risk, and the role of liberal ideology in the reproduction of structural systems and subsequently political outcomes.