Greenpeace New Zealand Weblog

Waving goodbye to the Warrior (C) GREENPEACE / Sharomov

Six weeks ago I packed my trunk in my bedroom in Grey Lynn Auckland, boarded a bus and rode downtown to Princes Wharf. There I walked up the gangway of the Rainbow Warrior. It was hot, late summer. American tourists crawled about the Viaduct. On the ship, there was excitement in the air and alleyways; a TARGET CLIMATE CHANGE banner ran between two masts. My cabin was downstairs and to the left. It had “Expect the unexpected” written on the door. I shared it with three others and it smelt like essential oils. I didn’t yet have my favourite spot to sit in the mess during dinner. And I didn’t yet know how to avoid pissing off the first mate. This would all come later. Read more »

The debate on board the Rainbow Warrior (C) GREENPEACE / SHAROMOV

The Rainbow Warrior arrived in Wellington yesterday, and to back up our survey of political parties, we cut straight to the chase with an on board political debate last night.

Climate spokespeople from four main parties came to defend their climate credentials – David Parker from Labour, Nick Smith from National, Jeanette Fitzsimons from the Greens, and Hone Harawira from the Maori Party. Read more »

Update: The debate can be viewed here.

In Wellington today (2 April 2008) at 7:00 PM, chaired by Sean Plunket from Radio New Zealand’s Morning Report and hosted by Greenpeace, NZ politicians are to debate which party’s climate policy is most on target to tackle climate change.

A live video webcast will be available at: http://www.greenpeace.org.nz/webcast from 7PM - 830PM
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Greenpeace ship the Rainbow Warrior blocks the State Owned Enterprise Solid Energy’s coal ship the Hellenic Sea from leaving the Port of Lyttelton. (C) Greenpeace / Dimitri Sharomov

Our action in Lyttelton was intended to highlight the double standards of a Government that happily boasts about its climate change policies while at the same time allowing the expansion of coal mining and coal exports from New Zealand.

Not only are they playing both sides of the game here, but the policies they do have in place are nothing to crow about either.

The National Party also talk a lot about climate change but don’t actually have any real policies in place to deliver emission reductions.

So, with the election approaching, we thought we’d try and find out a bit more about what the different political parties are really committing themselves to do.

In January, we sent a survey to all NZ political parties with 20 questions covering a range of issues about climate change including emission reduction targets, domestic emission reductions, agriculture, transport, energy, the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme, our international obligations, and social equity.

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