\nThe Government\u2019s plan to spend $5.3 billion on building new roads will slow down the development of clean transport in New Zealand, according to Greenpeace.
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The environmental organisation\u2019s climate and energy campaigner, Amanda Larsson, is disappointed by this morning\u2019s announcement, which she says misses an opportunity to clean up New Zealand\u2019s transport system.
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\u201cPeople\u2019s transport choices are framed by the options that are available to them. If you\u2019ve ever visited somewhere like London or New York, the vast majority of commuters get around on public transport because it\u2019s well-connected and convenient,\u201d she says.
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\u201cIf you build more roads, people will drive more. In New Zealand, we have particularly inefficient cars, and increasing their use will only contribute to more of the dirty emissions that are driving the climate emergency.\u201d
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The transport sector is New Zealand\u2019s fastest growing source of carbon emissions. It\u2019s responsible for around 20 percent of New Zealand\u2019s total greenhouse gas emissions each year. Of the $12 billion announced today for infrastructure, 44 percent – almost half – will be spent on expanding this sector.
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Larsson says although New Zealand is starting to be seen as a world leader on climate policy, the country is a laggard when it comes to providing the infrastructure that allows people to get around using clean transport, or power their homes with clean energy.
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\u201cThere really couldn\u2019t be a worse time to build expensive and polluting roading than now. From an economic point of view, it\u2019s a bad investment because we already have cleaner and more efficient ways of getting people where they want to go.
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\u201cFrom a moral perspective, our neighbours in Australia are losing their homes, lives, and livelihoods, and billions of animals are dying in devastating bushfires that have been fueled by climate change.
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\u201cThe climate crisis is fundamentally an infrastructure challenge. We can move away from our dependence on dirty fuels by building lots of solar, wind, batteries, electric trains, busways, and cycleways. All of this creates thousands of jobs, and gives people options that they currently don\u2019t have.
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\u201cThe $12 billion boost to infrastructure spending could have been a huge opportunity to address the climate emergency. But it needed to be spent on infrastructure that fixes the problem or, at the very least, doesn’t make things worse.\u201d
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ENDS
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For more info:<\/strong> Amanda Larsson | Climate and Energy Campaigner, Greenpeace <\/p>\n\n +64 (0)21 722 794<\/p>\n The Government\u2019s plan to spend $5.3 billion on building new roads will slow down the development of clean transport in New Zealand, according to Greenpeace. The environmental organisation\u2019s climate and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":92,"comment_status":"closed","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":"not set","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"not set","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[16,29,37],"p4-page-type":[7],"class_list":["post-7569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-greenpeace","tag-climate","tag-clean-energy","tag-jobs","p4-page-type-press-release"],"yoast_head":"\n
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