Why you’ll be hearing less from the new climate change commissioner

Monday, 7 July 2025

Dame Patsy Reddy has been flying under the radar since her appointment as the country’s second-only climate change commissioner in February.

The formidable inaugural commissioner, Dr Rod Carr, went out in a blaze of headlines in December, making a series of impassioned pleas for stronger climate action that culminated in him accusing fossil fuel promoters of a “crime against humanity”.

But Reddy, a former governor-general and professional director, is intentionally cultivating a lower profile.

She has only made a couple of public appearances since her appointment, including at an Institute of Directors’ breakfast ‒ and needed to be gently persuaded by The Post to agree to her first interview in the role.

Carr’s five-year term at the helm provided a great foundation for the commission, but it is “appropriate for us now to move into a new phase”, Reddy says.

While Carr could probably be described as very hands-on, Reddy sees her position as more of a governance one and has deliberately taken a step back.

“In most organisations ‒ and the Climate Change Commission should be no different ‒ one expects the main spokesperson to be the chief executive.

“So the commission’s chief executive, Jo Hendy, is stepping up to that.”

Reddy says she will continue to meet with stakeholders, but very much sees her role as reporting to Climate Change Minister Simon Watts and supporting Hendy, rather than being an executive chairperson.

“At the recent select committee hearing, I went along to support [Watts] and as it happened, he didn't call on me, but he knew I was there to do so.”

Reddy is expecting the changed role to be reflected in reduced remuneration.

Carr was paid $238,000 for his services in his final year as commissioner and $260,000 the year prior.

He says he spent about three days a week, on average, on commission business and conducted more than 600 webinars, seminars, workshops, and small group engagements during his five-year term.

But Reddy ‒ who divides her working week between Wellington and her home in Greytown ‒ estimates her time commitment at “at least a day a week, sometimes two days” and expects her pay, which has yet to be determined by the Remuneration Authority, to be adjusted accordingly.

“I don't want anyone to be under the illusion that I'm being paid $300,000 for one day a week.”

As the appointee of a government that has made clear its number one priority is economic growth ‒ and a person whose many past directorships have included sitting on the board of an oil explorer, Southern Petroleum ‒ it may be no surprise that Reddy’s credentials for the role have been queried by some.

Auckland-based specialist publication Carbon News questioned in a headline whether her appointment could be labelled “Trumpian”, quoting policy experts as suggesting it might even mark a first step by the Government towards dismantling the commission.

Reddy’s description of her own journey towards a concern with climate suggests a relatively recent conversion.

Fears about climate change started to become widespread in public discourse around 1988, when the United Nations established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and reports started regularly appearing in the mainstream media.

But Reddy, who is 71, says she remembers back to the days when she was on the board of Telecom “and ‘Y2K’ was the big issue”.

“To think back to those Halcyon days, we didn’t even think about climate change then. It is certainly in the last 10 years it has become an even more consuming concern.”

So does she see climate change as the biggest threat to life on the planet?

Reddy says she doesn’t know if she can make that assertion.

“But it is certainly ‒ that almost over-used word now ‒ a descriptor of existential threat.

“I don't think your day goes by when you don't hear it being referred to in concerning ways. It's certainly the hot topic.

“I do see it is as a major concern, which was why I was interested and concerned enough to see what I could do to help.”

A turning point was being appointed Governor-General in 2018.

“That brings with it, amongst other things, an opportunity to engage with a wide range of New Zealanders, in a wide range of sectors. One of them was the environment and the impact of climate on the environment.”

The first person she knighted was businessman and environmentalist Sir Robert Fenwick. They became good friends and Fenwick introduced her to the issues of the environment and conservation, but in particular, climate change.

Reddy became a patron of the Aotearoa Circle, which Fenwick was instrumental in setting up.

“It is an organisation that brought together the public and private sector with a specific focus on the environment and climate change in particular. So that was my first tangible involvement in it.”

Reddy concedes she hasn’t delved far enough into climate science to assess for herself, first-hand from the data, the extent of the risk.

“I’m not a scientist and I don't plan to be. I’ve left that run too late.

“I do want to ensure I understand what the science is saying, and in particular, what the commission is saying.

“I see one of my roles as chair to be a bridge between that independent expert advice and the effective communication of that advice to a wide range of New Zealanders.”

Does she then see it as part of her role to maintain and grow awareness of climate change risks amongst the public and politicians and to be a champion for climate action?

Reddy’s message is that she and the commission need to stay in the lane set out in the legislation that established the commission, and which means its job is to provide technical advice to the Government.

That provides “very strict guardrails” about what the commission is to do and when it's to do it, she says.

“What we're providing is evidence and what we believe are the judgement calls necessary to meet our 2050 ‘zero carbon’ target, and what the government of the day will need to do to meet its own emissions budgets.

“Within that, that could be action I imagine. We are here definitely advocating for lower emissions.

“If you're asking how tough I'll be, I will want to do what I can … to make sure that the commission is producing the very best possible advice for the Government and for the wider community.”

Guardrails aside, there may be no avoiding the commission having to make and defend some tough calls.

There appears to still be a lot of scientific uncertainty about the likely realistic contribution of some of the fairly novel mechanisms that the Government does appear to be intending to heavily rely on to make progress on the 2050 zero carbon target and which Green Party co-leader Chloe Swarbrick has labelled as involving “wishful thinking”.

These include a potential contribution from carbon sequestration ‒ storing carbon dioxide in disused oil and gas wells for example ‒ and biological measures to reduce methane emissions from cows.

Would it be part of the commission’s or indeed Reddy’s job to call out the Government, if it felt the aspirations it was asserting for those sorts of mitigation measures were overly optimistic?

Reddy’s media minders cut in before she can answer.

The commission will release its latest emissions reduction monitoring report later this month and that question will be best answered in the context of the report that's yet to be released, is the official line.

Reddy suggests people will “find the report helpful” on that question, though.

So it’s “watch this space” for how the commission fields its first difficult curve ball under its new stewardship, perhaps.