Green Party announces $100 million infrastructure fund, vows to make NZ carbon-neutral by 2050

The Green Party is making a bold commitment to make NZ economy carbon-neutral by 2050, by speeding up investments in big projects that will kick-start the green economy and create jobs.

A major catalyst towards this goal will be the $100 million Green Infrastructure Fund that seeks to provide opportunities for long-term investors and private sector financing into funding new renewable energy projects and other clean technology projects.

The Party is committing to establish a government-owned, financially sustainable Green Infrastructure Fund immediately after forming the government.

The fund will initially be set up with $10 million corpus, which would be raised to $100 million line of credit within next two-three years, and be initially paid for by raising oil royalty rates from 46 per cent to the global average rate of 70 per cent.

“The fund will be a magnet to attract private finance to transformational low carbon and climate resilient projects,” Green Party Co-Leader James Shaw says.

Speaking to members of Green Party at Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Auckland today, Mr Shaw called upon everyone to act fast on the gigantic problem of climate change stating that “the time to take action on climate change is passing by our generation.”

“Under National, NZ will keep subsidising oil drilling instead of creating jobs in clean technologies. Only the Green will change that,” Mr Shaw said to applauding Party members.

“The Green Infrastructure Fund will be the Kiwibank of the clean economy, kick-starting our transition to a carbon neutral economy by 2050,” Mr Shaw reiterated later on speaking with the media present on occasion.

Kiwibank was founded in 2001 with an initial capital injection of $80 million in its first year of operation and since then have grown into a profitable bank controlling assets worth of $20.4 billion.

The Green Party’s infrastructure fund is seeking to emulate Kiwibank’s success and operational model in order to finance a ‘green economy’.

How does Fund will work?

• The fund will provide opportunities for long-term investors, including iwi, to achieve good financial returns, positive environmental outcomes, and create jobs.
• The fund will have a minimum target rate of return of five per cent, a goal of reducing emissions by 1 million tonnes of Carbon-di-Oxide annually, and thousands of jobs.
• The fund will provide capital and will share risk, through providing loans/or equity financing.