"A turning point in history" - that's how the Finance Minister has sold the Government's long-awaited Emissions Reduction Plan.
But slashing our emissions is not going to come cheap or easy, initially costing $2.9 billion. That includes $1.2 billion for transport, with almost half of that going towards helping families scrap and replace their old gas-guzzlers with low-emitting vehicles.
There's also $710 million earmarked to help agriculture reduce its emissions and a billion dollars going towards the energy sector.
"Today is the most significant day in our country's history on climate action," Finance Minister Grant Robertson said on Monday.
It's the moment the Government says your life will change, because of the doorstop of a document that is the Emissions Reduction Plan.
Grant Robertson now has his emissions answers and to pay for them he's making it rain cash for the climate.
"[It's] the biggest investment in climate protection New Zealand has ever seen," he said.
It's costing almost $3 billion, but no debt is needed as the Government's using a new $4.5 billion fund, paid for by the Emissions Trading Scheme AKA polluters.
"It is a turning point in history now, where either we invest to tackle climate change now or we prepare to pay for the costs of inaction."
Almost half of it is going towards getting Kiwis out of their beloved gas-guzzlers and into electric vehicles. That new scrap-and-replace scheme will cost $569 million, subsidising low- and middle-income families to ditch their clunkers for an EV. There's $20 million for a pilot to lease EVs to Kiwis who can't afford a new car.
To get Kiwis out from behind the wheel altogether there's a new $350m Transport Choices fund for cycleways, walkways and greener and better public transport, and to ensure there are actually people to drive the buses $61 million will be spent on improving drivers' pay and conditions. The Government's also investing $40 million to make sure more buses don't mean more pollution.
Asked where half-price public transport fares are in the plan, Robertson said: "Well what you've seen here today is a plan that goes across the emissions budgets."
It's a plan Climate Commission chair Rod Carr said is only as good as the action it inspires and everyone should use the plan to take a good hard look at their lives.
"High emissions lifestyles are going to cost you more money [and] high emissions livelihoods are going to be more vulnerable to disruption," he said.
ACT leader David Seymour called it "the most expensive and bureaucratic path to reduce emissions imaginable", while National's Christopher Luxon said "it's incredibly light on detail".
"There's almost 400 initiatives in here at a cost of almost $3 billion."
But Robertson believes it's a "plan like no other".
"Its significance cannot be underestimated," he said.
Only if it works, and only action - and time - will tell that.
