Creating a serious climate for change
This opinion piece from Bunny McDiarmid our Executive Director is published in the NZ Herald today …
When the Emissions Trading Bill passed last week, Greenpeace sighed with relief. Not so much because this particular piece of legislation is now law, but because politicians can finally stop squabbling over it and get on with implementing stronger, more immediate climate policies.
The bill is a small, necessary step towards New Zealand making a valid contribution to global climate change. But it’s too generous to agriculture and other big polluters and won’t result in the deep emission cuts required.
In the time political leaders have been playing politics over the climate and our biggest polluting companies have been campaigning for massive public subsidies, the Arctic ice cap entered a “death spiral”.
The Arctic Ocean could be totally free of summer ice by 2020. For the first time, it’s possible to sail right around the North Pole.
Meanwhile, it was roundly concluded that a string of particularly ferocious natural disasters worldwide is in line with climate change projections.
