Greenpeace New Zealand Weblog

… or in NZ’s case — reason to hang our heads in shame!

The Energy [R]evolution is Greenpeace’s international plan to save the planet from catastrophic climate change. Susan Sarandon narrates the first of three ‘Reasons to Believe’. The latest one below explains why energy efficiency is so important and also so easily achieved, just by small changes such as a switch from traditional lightbulbs to more energy efficient ones. In the one minute you will spend watching this film solar energy could power a country the size of Portugal for one week. In one minute.

Unfortunately the NZ National Government forced a post production edit …

…which makes the rationale for National’s just- announced road building bonanza ridiculous. National argues that building roads is better for the environment because if you build a new road/expand an existing road there will be less traffic congestion, resulting in fewer emissions from the cars on that road or, as they put it in their Transport Announcement yesterday: “the shifts in funding [towards public transport, cycling, and walking] that the previous government proposed would lead to greater congestion…and environmental inefficiency.”

However, this totally ignores the fact that building a new road/expanding an existing road encourages people to drive on it. Ultimately, you end up with more air pollution, not less.
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Don't flush our climate down the John

“We will not gain anything today or in the months ahead if we become lost in hand-wringing and crystal-ball gazing about how bad things are or could be… What we do know is that we are in uncharted waters…Many words have and will be spoken about it… I’m here to do something about it…We are a gritty country with the smarts and determination needed to weather this storm. So let’s roll up our sleeves, pull together, and get going.”

So spoke Prime Minister John Key as he opened today’s much-heralded job summit in Auckland. One can only dream of the day he expresses the same sentiment over the even fiercer storm we face– climate change. Read more »

New Zealand’s environment is bruised. Since National came to power, it has been dealt some nasty blows. Our clean green brand is reeling, black and blue from disrespect and shoddy treatment. And today it was blindsided with the announcement of a ‘reform’ of the Resource Management Act.

Essentially the changes will make it easier for developments to proceed, and harder for individuals and communities to object.
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Today’s Dominion Post had a little post-it note attached ..

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Don’t Flush The Climate Down The John

Proceedings for the ‘Parliament’s Speech from the Throne’ began this morning with Greenpeace activists filling the Beehive front lawn with an ironic message the Government should remember.

Distracted media and onlookers watched as we deposited rows of porcelain toilets on parliament grounds with a globe inside each one. Each lavatory read ‘don’t flush our climate down the John’. After being moved on by security, our toilet team moved the 36 toilets to a site right beside parliamentary grounds and tackled the topic of climate change throughout the day.

Visually this was a simple and humorous protest, but it had a very serious undercurrent. The toilets upstaged the somewhat detached National Government during its own proceedings by drawing attention to its poor international performance on climate change.
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Here’s an interesting little campaign that’s sprung up in response to the new National Government’s back peddling on climate change — Don’t Be A Rodney, John Key

This is from the website:

The world is watching. On Tuesday 18 November, Barack Obama made a powerful statement that was heard around the globe: “Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all. Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response. The stakes are too high. The consequences, too serious.”

Delay? Denial? He’s talking about Rodney!

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The writing is on the blackboard

At his inaugural post-Cabinet press conference, Prime Minister John Key confirmed the worst; that New Zealand will plead special treatment at this week’s UN climate talks in Poznan, Poland, and try to weasel out of emission reduction commitments. In other words, New Zealand is happy to scuttle the talks that might just save the world.

It’s on account of our cows, you see. Agriculture makes up half all New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions, but Key has prioritised the sector’s ability to make money over a rotting planet.

“You can expect us to negotiate aggressively in our corner, and I think that’s the right thing to do,”

he says.

Imagine if every one of the 190 nations involved in the UN negotiations pleaded special treatment – the circles talked in would be vertigo-inducing and in the meantime, climate change would run away on us. For New Zealand to be so bullish (excuse the pun) seriously undermines the entire premise of the talks – that something must be done about global emissions and quickly.
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One year ago, at the tail end of a searingly hot day on the Balinese peninsula of Nusa Dua, governments from around the world agreed on a plan to save the climate. They pledged that by December 2009, they’ll have nailed down an agreement to achieve the global emission cuts urgently required to keep climate change in check. In doing so, they acknowledged that it’s now or never; that if they fail to reach that agreement, they will be unable to look the future in the eye.

We are one year down the track. A year is a long time in today’s climate; temperature increases, global emissions and loss of ice at the Arctic and Antarctic have now overshot scientists’ worst case scenarios. The Arctic icecap has entered what’s been called a ‘death spiral’. For the first time in human history, you can take a ship right around the North Pole. There may be no summer ice left at all at the North Pole within five years. The British foreign secretary’s special representative for climate said the challenge of fighting climate change must be treated more seriously than the threat from the Cold War, and that industrialised countries should essentially put their economies on a war footing. The scientific imperative for action is growing by the day, and we have just one year left to reach a deal that sees global emissions peak in the next eight years, then drop.
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I’m feeling a bit despondent. I’m sure we used to write positive blogs on the Greenpeace site. In amongst news of rising global emissions and melting icecaps, I’m certain there used to be the occasional cheery reminder that all is not lost.

Not this week. This week I am cursing daily and sporting a permanently furrowed brow. It deepens when I scan the media, and see things like the warning from the Dominion Post’s Political Editor that New Zealand is at high risk of becoming a “climate change hillbilly”. Read more »