Greenpeace New Zealand Weblog

In 1969, Marie Aimee took her two children for medical treatment, a six-day voyage across the Indian Ocean from their home on Diego Garcia island to Port Louis, Mauritius. Her husband, Dervillie Permal, stayed behind to work at a coconut oil factory and tend the family garden and animals.

After visiting the doctor and picking up supplies in Port Louis, Marie and her children arrived at the quay for the trip home. However, a British Government agent refused to allow them onto the boat, stranding Marie and her children in Mauritius. Throughout the following weeks, other marooned islanders appeared, congregating in a local slum, living in boxes or tin shacks. Two years later, Marie’s husband arrived in Port Louis with one small bag and a chilling story.
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On Wednesday, 20 August, about 200 Greenpeace supporters packed into the Rialto cinema in Newmarket, Auckland to watch Earth; an amazing journey through the richness of life on our planet.

It is 8.15 pm, and the 190 seat movie theater of Rialto cinema is full of Greenpeace supporters and staff. The atmosphere is friendly, chatty and, in a word: very Greenpeace. Before the movie started, Bunny, Greenpeace NZ executive director, gave a little speech to introduce the film. After thanking everyone for coming, she highlighted the importance of Greenpeace supporters’ contribution to the organisation’s campaigns. Then, she gave the microphone to Simon, our Senior Climate Campaigner. He shared his opinion on climate change, saying that although progress sometimes felt slow within the campaign, it was absolutely not too late to do something about it. If we act properly, we can preserve our biodiversity for our children.
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Update: The Greens have decided to support the Emissions Trading Scheme. Here’s the Greenpeace response.

The long anticipated Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) will either either be born or stillborn next week.

IN the absence of any real policy on climate change the ETS, although not perfect, would be a good step in the right direction. It leaves out some important things like agriculture, but it is whole lot better than nothing.

The Labour Govt. don’t have the numbers to get it through on their own so they’ve been in tough negotiations with NZ First and the Greens to attain their support for the bill.

The Greens have said in the past days that they are unsure about whether to support it and have asked for public opinion - should we or shouldn’t we? They’ve set up a special ets@greens.org.nz email address for you to send you your thoughts on whether or not they should support the bill.

I’m certainly going to send them a strongly worded message. The climate is in crisis and New Zealand has virtually no policy in place to start addressing it. The ETS isn’t perfect but it’s all we’ve got at this point and to abandon it would be big step backwards.

And dear reader, if you’ve got an opinion on the matter I urge you to send it to the Greens at ets@greens.org.nz … it’s not every day that democracy is so participatory! (You can hear what the Greens have to say on the matter via a little youtube clip on their blog.)

The ETS is a complicated beast so here’s an excerpt from our latest Greenpeace Magazine to explain it a little. Read more »

I hate misleading headlines. The Herald today has an article titled: “Many think it’s too late for climate, survey finds” - oh my gosh we think - how are we ever going to do anything about it it everyone has given up??

But read on and the truth of it is different.

Ten per cent of New Zealanders believe it is too late to do anything about climate change, a new survey reveals.

The poll of more than 4000 household shoppers showed “hundreds” thought it was too late to act on climate change. Only one in 10 New Zealanders and about two in 10 Australians thought time had run out.
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Greenpeace activists protesting against EPR in Flamanville, Northern west France.

Several accidents happened in French nuclear plants in July. Greenpeace France has subsequently filed two complaints against Areva, the French state-controlled nuclear giant.

Tough month for French nuclear plants… On July 8, the Areva nuclear site of Tricastin (southeastern France) leaked about 30 cubic meters of uranium-rich water. Result: 30,000 liters of this uranium solution trickled into the ground and polluted small rivers around the plant area. The local authority said there wasn’t any danger for the environment but “by way of precaution” fishing, sailing and swimming in the affected area are banned.
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Proposed site of the new gas fired power station

Yesterday the National Party released its pro-gas energy policy; I think it’s timely to take a look at how planned fossil fuel projects play out in the communities affected….

When the Government announced its proposed climate legislation in October last year, many residents of the Rodney District North of Auckland breathed a sigh of relief, because the proposal included a target of 90 per cent renewable generation by 2025 and a ban on state-owned enterprises building new fossil fuel generated power plants. Then came proposals for an emissions trading scheme (ETS) and ten-year moratorium on new thermal generation for all electricity generators. It looked like Genesis Energy’s proposal for a new gas-fired power station in Rodney would die a quiet death. At the time, Energy Minister David Parker stated on Radio NZ that the moratorium meant Rodney Power Station would not proceed. Finance Minister Michael Cullen said “We do not need that amount of additional thermal capacity given what we are told is available in terms of wind, geothermal and hydro”.
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The party that would govern New Zealand after the next election released its energy policy today. Crude curses and furrowed brows abound at Greenpeace HQ. It’s like National is living in an alternate reality where climate change doesn’t exist.

The new policy reads like something from the 70s, and utterly fails to acknowledge the biggest collective crisis we’re ever faced. It’s heavily reliant on gas, does not support renewables to any significant degree and places little emphasis on energy efficiency and conservation. Also, extraordinarily, it sanctions coal for power generation. Yes, coal - that old dinosaur of fossil fuels, that blatant climate killer. Now, we know from Energy Spokesman Gerry Brownlee’s video newsletter of last year - one chapter of which is entitled “sexy coal” - that this is a man who finds strange things attractive.
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Framing goes in at Akiraho Street (C) GREENPEACE / TAYLOR

It’s been a fairly intense last three weeks on the job at Akiraho St, the new Greenpeace head office refit is ploughing ahead. The acceleration in the work programme has continued and there are days now where we see up to 20 contractors on site. It has to be this way now as Greenpeace has decided on a move in date and this is now only one month away!
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Meet Sad Fish. He’s a little on the rotund side and a tad more furry than most other fish but he’s fronting the new seafood campaign here in New Zealand and we’re glad to have him on our side.

On Sunday over at Kelly Tarlton’s Underwater World, along with Sad Fish, we launched the new Greenpeace Red Fish List - a handy little wallet sized guide designed to help you avoid buying the most unsustainable seafood.
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Traffic on the Avenue des Champs-elysees, Paris, France (CC) boulanger.IE

Bertrand Delanoe, the Mayor of Paris, has proposed a greener way to travel in the City of Light: Autolib’, a self-service electric car rental system.

My name is Francios - I’m from France but at the moment I’m an intern here in the Greenpeace NZ office. Those who have been in Paris know that Paris is the kind of exhilarating city that would be perfect without its cars. Every single place you go, you see cars: Eiffel Tower, the Champs Elysees and, of course, the Arc de Triomphe. The Parisian way of driving a car is infamous in France and most of the non-Paris-inhabitants don’t even dare to drive in the city unless they really have to.

Cue a system where people can “borrow” an electric car for a period of time. 4,000 cars will be available, half in Paris and the other half in the suburbs. Read more »