You’d be forgiven for missing the news in early January – announced as the Los Angeles fires burned – that 2024 temperatures breached the 1.5 degree ‘life or death’ threshold of global warming.

As wildfires burn through large swathes of Los Angeles, California, leaving many homeless, the world prepares for the upcoming Donald Trump presidency and the no-doubt disastrous legacy this could leave for the environment. Meanwhile here at home Luxon and his Government push through some of the most dishonourable, racist, and anti-nature pieces of legislation that Aotearoa has seen in our lifetimes.

Right now, it feels like we’re overwhelmed by an onslaught of bad news. But even in the midst of tragedy, there is still hope – and here’s why.

The Los Angeles fires are devastating, but our chance to stop the worst effects of climate change isn’t over yet.

We’re in the middle of a climate crisis. Temperatures are increasing, and the Los Angeles fires are just one example of the increasing number of extreme weather events connected to global warming. Meanwhile, the Luxon-led government has taken a sharp U-turn on climate action.

A home burns in the Los Angeles fires in Eaton, California. A building is crumbling, shown as a silhouette against the orange sky and fire. A tree is still standing in the background.
Homes burn as powerful winds drive the Eaton Fire on January 7, 2025 in Pasadena, Los Angeles, California.

1.5 degrees is widely heralded as the cut off point for climate change – the deciding factor where we measure whether or not we’ve managed to shift course and protect the planet we all depend on. But our work to stop the worst impacts of climate change is not over just because we’ve surpassed 1.5 degrees in a single year.

Every fraction of a degree of warming represents vastly different scenarios that could mean the difference between vast swathes of the planet being uninhabitable, and a more balanced and safe world for us all. Preventing temperatures from increasing to 1.6, or 1.7, or 1.8 degrees could mean the difference between one catastrophic wildfire every year on the scale we’re seeing in Los Angeles, and two, or three, or four, or ten.

Breaching 1.5 degrees of global warming now, for a single year, is not a death sentence.

We can still turn things around. If we dramatically reduce emissions now, there is still a chance that we can gradually reverse the trends we’re seeing. Things might be bad, but they don’t have to stay this way, and there are really simple and straightforward solutions that we can implement now in order to reduce global climate pollution.

Those solutions are things like ending oil and gas exploration and extraction, both onshore and offshore. Like solar panels on every home. Like regenerative, ecological agriculture practices that sequester carbon and reduce methane emissions from livestock.

We can also minimise the harm done to communities on the frontlines of climate disasters – like the Los Angeles fires, or the flooding in the Philippines and Indonesia – by making big polluters pay for the damage caused by their climate pollution. We’ve seen here in Aotearoa that it is becoming increasingly difficult to insure homes that are threatened by sea level rise, coastal erosion, or cyclone damage, and the same is true overseas in regions that are threatened by wildfires. That means everyday people like you and me are forced to pay out of pocket for damage that they have done very little to cause.

That’s not fair, especially when polluting industries like the fossil fuel industry and the intensive agriculture industry are allowed to pollute and damage the climate, causing these disasters, without having to pay for the damage they’ve caused.

And if governments won’t fight climate change, people-powered resistance can stop the worst polluters.

Relying on our governments to cut emissions doesn’t always work. Here in Aotearoa, the Luxon-led Government is rapidly undoing much of the climate change legislation and solutions that previous governments had put in place. Overseas, a swing to the right has brought Donald Trump into power – a man who has threatened to remove the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change, increase fossil fuel extraction, and has said repeatedly that he doesn’t believe in climate change. That’s bad. But it doesn’t mean the fight is over.

We’ve won battles against anti-nature governments before

Here in Aotearoa, some of the biggest wins we’ve ever had, have happened under governments that were intent on pushing through anti-environment legislation. In particular, I’m reminded of the long-standing campaign to end offshore oil and gas exploration. Despite the John Key Government’s intent to expand fossil fuel exploration in Aotearoa, people-powered resistance in allyship with iwi, hapū, local communities, and people from all across the country forced successive oil companies out of New Zealand waters one by one. First Petrobras, then Anadarko, Shell, Equinor/Statoil and Chevron. Finally OMV stopped drilling for oil and sought to sell off their assets – a decision which they have since reversed, but only because they were unable to find anyone interested in buying them.

Another example that comes to mind is the fight to stop the Ruataniwha Dam in Central Hawke’s Bay. We successfully delayed the building of a dam which would have flooded vast areas of conservation land under an anti-environment Government. Not only that, but this dam would have led to the expansion of the intensive dairy industry in the Hawke’s Bay region. The intensive dairy industry is New Zealand’s single biggest source of climate pollution, as well as polluting fresh water and drinking water. By stopping the Ruataniwha Dam, we prevented an increase in climate pollution from the dairy herd – which was only possible because people from across the country came together to stand up to the agriculture industry’s pollution.

And that brings me to my next point. We have a massive opportunity, here in Aotearoa and in fact around the world, to make a very significant dent in global climate pollution – and in fact, reduce the amount of warming we experience.

We can pull the climate emergency brake by tackling intensive livestock farming.

The dairy industry is New Zealand’s worst climate polluter. Fonterra and the rest of the dirty dairy sector are pumping out huge amounts of superheating methane gas which is cooking the climate faster than carbon dioxide. And that’s making climate disasters like the Los Angeles fires more likely and more severe.

Many people are starting to lose hope – you might be one of them. But there is still a way to pull the emergency brake on climate change, and it’s all to do with methane.

Because methane is so powerful, but also lasts in the atmosphere for less time than carbon dioxide, cutting methane emissions rapidly and keeping them down over time will have a huge impact on preventing worsening climate change.

A Greenpeace report released just last year shows that there’s huge benefit to this. It highlights that reducing methane emissions from Big Meat and Dairy NOW could prevent up to 0.3 degrees of global warming – and potentially also reverse some of the warming we’ve already caused.

 In short, if we reduce pollution from the dairy industry, we can pull the climate emergency brake.

So what does reducing dairy pollution look like? 

In short, we need to reduce the number of livestock on farms all around the world – because methane mostly comes from the burps of cows and sheep and the manure of cows, sheep, pigs, chickens and other farm animals. As the world’s largest dairy exporter, New Zealand has a big role to play. Fonterra, one of the world’s worst dairy polluters, must reduce the number of cows on their farms.

The only reason the intensive dairy industry is able to farm at this unsustainable scale is through a reliance on destructive inputs like palm kernel, synthetic nitrogen fertiliser and irrigation. It literally isn’t possible to feed such huge herds without it. That means that Fonterra and the dairy industry must stop using palm kernel and synthetic nitrogen fertiliser. And we cannot let the industry grow further through more irrigation schemes or dairy expansions.

Take action with us and call on Fonterra to stop using palm kernel now.

Together, we can pull the climate emergency brake – and prevent the worst climate catastrophes.

The fight to stop the worst impacts of climate change is not over yet.

And it needs every single one of us. As more climate disasters like the Los Angeles wildfires devastate communities around the world, we must remember that it is not too late. And together, we have more power than any of the Governments or industries that seek to delay climate action.

Please, join us and take action today.

Landcover, forest clearance and plantation development in PT Megakarya Jaya Raya (PT MJR) palm oil concession. PT MJR is part of the Hayel Saeed Anam group which has a number of palm oil related interests including Pacific Inter-Link which controls HSA's palm oil refining and trading interests.
PETITION: Stop Fonterra using Palm Kernel

Call on Fonterra to end the use of rainforest destroying palm kernel on its farms by banning palm kernel in the Farmers’ Terms of Supply.

Sign the petition