Greenpeace New Zealand Weblog

An update on UN Climate negotiations in Bonn, Germany brought to you by our very own Cindy Baxter who has been at the negotiations since the start.

Coming to the end of a hard two weeks here at the climate talks in Bonn, we were greeted yesterday by a very (VERY) loud siren on the back of a truck parked by our colleagues just down from the conference centre. Sounding the alarm for the climate. The siren went on for two hours before our 15 activists were arrested. The noise carried into the building and maybe it jolted some sense into at least some of the negotiators here.
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I have to confess, I haven’t achieved much today – illness and
tiredness have caught up with me. There’s a virus doing the rounds of
delegates at the negotiations as we have all become more tired and
it’s got me. So I’ve had a quiet day. When you’re at something like
this, you don’t want to waste a moment so it’s easy to overwork and
it’s also frustrating to feel less than 100%.

I missed the big event of the day when my Greenpeace colleagues set
off a large alarm outside the Maritim Hotel to highlight that failure
of countries, including New Zealand, to show the level of urgency
required to tackle climate change. There is no sense of urgency here whatsoever. Read more »

By now New Zealand should be caving in under the weight of an unenviable crown.

We have again been awarded Fossil of the Day award at the UN climate negotiations at Bonn. We’ve even crept up the charts, gaining second equal with Japan.

Japan also scored a separate special Fossil of the Day for proposing a criminally weak emissions reduction target of 8% emission reductions below 1990 levels by 2020.  This should be seen as a sign of what’s in store for New Zealand if the Government doesn’t have a strong target to announce in August. Read more »

Today the New Zealand delegation is getting a bouquet not a brick-bat.

They made a very good intervention (short speech) in negotiations over the Kyoto Protocol.  It’ll take a bit to explain why it was a good thing, so bear with me a minute while I explain. Read more »

New Zealand’s refusal to offer a target at Bonn has resulted in another Fossil of the Day award.  At the last Bonn meeting, New Zealand got Fossil of the Day for “pulling the wool over the eyes of delegates.”

Fossil of the Day is awarded to Government delegations by the Climate Action Network of over 450 environmental and social organisations from all over the world including Greenpeace, WWF and OXFAM. Read more »

Greenpeace Political Adviser Geoff Keey is back in Bonn for the latest round of UN climate talks in the lead up to Copenhagen in December. Here begins his account of the ins and outs of the most crucial negotiations of our time….

Is New Zealand taking the piss?

That was the question someone asked of me today about New Zealand’s approach to the climate change negotiations.

After months of procrastination, New Zealand has announced to delegates here at Bonn that it will offer a 2020 target for cuts in greenhouse gas pollution, but not yet. Read more »

In which Geoff nears the end of his tether…

The negotiations are winding down as countries prepare to deliver closing speeches and I feel the need to sound off about how New Zealand is performing.

New Zealand has a very talented delegation at the climate change negotiations. They are smart, thoughtful, engaging and professional and probably one of the most capable teams at Bonn. They could really make a big difference to these negotiations – they could help drive a bold climate change deal that is needed to avoid dangerous levels of climate change. Read more »

The latest from Greenpeace Political Adviser Geoff Keey in Bonn –

It’s 11pm. I’m sitting outside a small meeting room at the UN climate talks in Bonn with five of my Greenpeace colleagues. We’re waiting for people inside to come out. It may be a long wait.

Here in this diplomatic Alice in Wonderland of papers called non-papers, informal meetings which are extremely formal and an unbelievable number of acronyms, a battle is brewing over words; words which will decide the fate of millions. Read more »

Saturday was agriculture’s day in the sun at the UN climate change negotiations in Bonn, with delegates discussing options for reducing the sector’s growing greenhouse gas. New Zealand made a presentation during the day and then in the evening the delegation ran a side event titled “Silencing the Lambs.”

Given that the increase in New Zealand’s agricultural greenhouse pollution is due to a rapidly expanding dairy sector, I think Hannibal Lactator would have been a better name for the event. Read more »

in which Greenpeace Political Adviser Geoff Keey reports in from the UN climate talks in Bonn, Germany…

New Zealand has won third prize in Fossil of the Day awards at the climate talks.

What’s that you ask? Well, there’s a long-standing tradition of the Climate Action Network (CAN) of environmental NGOs to grant Fossil of the Day awards to countries that act irresponsibly at climate change negotiations. Fossil of the Day awards are usually well attended. They provide a little light relief in the otherwise painfully slow progress that is a feature of these negotiations. Read more »