Clean green image a mere veneer

Tuesday, July 21st, 2015

Climate change minister Tim Groser last week announced that Zealand’s provisional target is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 which is equivalent to 11 per cent below 1990 levels.

This target has been condemned as inadequate and some critics are saying New Zealand’s clean green image is a mere veneer.

Caritas Director Julianne Hickey says New Zealand’s commitment far behind the targets being set by Europe, Canada and the United States. “This is neither fair nor ambitious,” says Hickey.

Read the Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand Statement

Hickey said the New Zealand government was already seen by global church networks as one of the more conservative contributors to international climate change talks and this timid goal will further reinforce that impression.

“New Zealand’s reputation as a clean green country will once again be seriously affected,” she says.

Hickey’s opinion is backed up by Climate Action Tracker which rates New Zealand’s pledge as inadequate.

“While most other governments intend cutting emissions, New Zealand appears to be increasing emissions, and hiding this through creative accounting.”

“It may not have to take any action at all to meet either its 2020 or 2030 targets.”

Climate Action Tracker is a grouping of four independent European research organisations

It has been rating the commitments being tabled for the Paris conference in December intended to thrash out a comprehensive agreement to curb emissions between 2020 and 2030.

Hickey says the New Zealand government’s action is a very disappointing outcome to a consultation process.

She said the majority of submitters on the New Zealand government’s climate change target favoured doing whatever we can now to reduce climate change, rather than allowing the costs of adapting to climate change to fall on future generations.

In it own submission Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand urged the New Zealand government to be a bold and ambitious thought leader, rather than a cautious and timid follower.

“Since our submission, Pope Francis has also urged the international community to take significant action,” says Hickey.

An international conference held last week in the Vatican on the Pope’s encyclical Laudato Si’ included a range of non-government and government players anticipating that the language of the upcoming Paris climate change negotiations will be transformed by the Pope’s intervention.

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