Greenpeace New Zealand Weblog

Climate Change Minister David Parker defends the Labour party’s climate credentials at a recent debate onboard the Rainbow Warrior. Unfortunately for David, Helen Clark’s recent announcements have made the job all that much harder.

…in which our mighty leader - the Lady in Red – begins to crumble in the face of smoke stacks, cow sheds and men in Working Style suits.

New Zealand’s response to climate change is at a crossroads, and all indications are that the Labour-led government is so engrossed in election panic that it’s going to sacrifice taxpayer money and the planet to curry favour.

Unfortunately for the Government, this is likely to play perfectly into the hands of the National Party which will be quick to claim the credit for the policy shift, while shrewdly leaving Labour to shoulder any fallout.

New Zealand’s flagship climate policy is the emissions trading scheme (ETS), which is currently under scrutiny by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee. In its current form, the scheme suffers serious shortcomings, and desperately needs to be strengthened (see Greenpeace’s comprehensive and easy-reading report into the scheme, which was released to much fanfare in March - www.greenpeace.org.nz/ets-report)
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The Rainbow Warrior in Wellington with the Beehive in the background (C) GREENPEACE / SHAROMOV

There is a worrying trend among our political leaders to use an age-old but completely nonsensical and deplorable excuse for doing bad things.

And it is this: “If we don’t do it, someone else will.”

We’ve had to tolerate this stance a number of times in recent weeks. First, David Parker, Minister for Climate Change, in response to our Lyttelton coal action

We have no intention of stopping the export of coal, and even if we did, it wouldn’t make any difference to climate change, because the countries we export to would just get their coal from somewhere else.

Second, Environment Minister Trevor Mallard, in response to the fact that his own company, SOE Landcorp, is clearing tens of thousands of hectares of forest in the central North Island for conversion to intensive dairying:

“If it (Landcorp) stops work someone else will do it.”

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