Greenpeace says more people will take to the streets to confront climate polluters directly as the Government releases its second Emissions Reductions Plan, which \u201cisn\u2019t worth the paper it\u2019s written on\u201d.<\/p>\n\n
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts made headlines in July for signalling that under this plan, New Zealand would miss long-term targets to cut climate pollution in line with science. This has not been resolved in the final version of the Plan.<\/p>\n\n
Greenpeace spokesperson Sin\u00e9ad Deighton-O\u2019Flynn says, \u201cWe are already seeing the impacts of climate change, with worsening fires, floods and droughts all around the world. Our home is on fire, and future generations\u2019 lives are at stake. But rather than fighting the blaze, this Government is pouring fuel on the fire.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
Greenpeace blames industry lobbying for weakening New Zealand\u2019s climate commitments.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThis Government has consistently allowed big polluters like the agribusiness industry and the fossil fuel industry to write the policy on climate change, and this abject failure of a plan is the result,\u201d says Deighton-O\u2019Flynn.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThis is a textbook example of foxes running the henhouse. The Luxon Government is absolving polluting industries of all responsibility and leaving everyday New Zealanders to suffer the consequences of climate inaction. Under Luxon\u2019s leadership, we will all pay the price of worse and more frequent extreme weather events driven by climate pollution.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThe intensive dairy industry, led by Fonterra, is New Zealand\u2019s worst climate polluter. That\u2019s because there are simply too many cows belching out vast quantities of superheating methane gas,\u201d says Deighton-O\u2019Flynn.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cBut an alternative pathway is possible. We already know what needs to be done to reduce climate pollution here in Aotearoa – we don\u2019t need to wait for silver bullet technofixes, which don\u2019t even exist yet. By reducing the size of the dairy herd we can dramatically reduce methane emissions. This would pull the climate emergency brake and slow global warming within our lifetimes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Internationally, New Zealand has faced significant criticism for the Luxon Government\u2019s rollbacks of policies that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In November, New Zealand dropped seven places in the global ranking on climate change released by the Climate Change Performance Index. Key policies that led to this decision included the reversal of the oil and gas ban and the removal of agriculture from the Emissions Trading Scheme.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThere will be consequences for this inaction. We trade on our clean, green reputation. It will become harder for New Zealand to sell milk and other livestock products into markets that are increasingly valuing climate action,\u201d says Deighton-O\u2019Flynn.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThere will be impacts domestically too. If the government won\u2019t hold polluters to account, then people will. People are increasingly taking to the streets and the courtrooms, putting their bodies on the line to shut down polluting industries. This will only escalate further unless New Zealand ups its game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Greenpeace says second Emissions Reduction Plan ‘not worth the paper’, more people will take to the streets to confront climate polluters directly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":61941,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_planet4_optimize_post_is_variant":false,"_planet4_optimize_experiment_name":"","_planet4_optimize_variant_name":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[16,19],"p4-page-type":[7],"class_list":["post-67759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-greenpeace","tag-climate","tag-food-and-farming","p4-page-type-press-release"],"yoast_head":"\n