Greenpeace New Zealand Weblog

Postcards To Poznan

Pride. For me it personifies what it means to be a Kiwi. Our country and New Zealanders are admired the world over. I’ve travelled overseas and everyone I meet likes and respects our nation. And every single person says that they would love to visit our shores.

So why is it that I’m becoming more and more despondent with where my country’s heading?

Yes, I work at Greenpeace, but I’m a small town girl and heart just trying to make my world a better place. I am deeply saddened by our Government’s performance at the just ended global climate talks in Poznan.

190 countries spent 12 days discussing our future.

4 countries stood out as being the major culprits in blocking desperately needed progress to secure a global climate change agreement.

Shamefully New Zealand stood amongst these 4 countries. Read more »

Over the last couple of weeks, more than 13,000 of you uploaded photos to let the delegates at the UN meeting know that the World is Watching. We took your photos to Poznan and projected them in Plac Wolnosci for the Global Day of Action on climate change.

We’ll be doing projections all week in Poznan so if you haven’t uploaded yourself to the wall – there’s no time like the present!

Here’s the video:

Over the last couple of days – the Climate Rescue Station has been broken up and taken to Poznan. I’m just about the catch the train back to Amsterdam and things are pretty much wrapped up here in Konin – although the Polish team will continue their campaign against the mine expansion.

The five climbers who were arrested after leaving the coal smokestack have been released and are now enjoying being able to eat real food (after living off super noodles and soup for the past few days), go to the toilet properly and sleep without being huddled next to each other with a constant whirring noise buzzing through their heads. They are all doing fine.

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As the climate negotiations in Poznan, Poland get under way, Greenpeace activists from the Climate Rescue Station settled in for another the night at the top of a coal stack and the intensity of action around the world has stepped up a notch.

The pressure for strong outcomes in Poznan is building. Read more »

You might have seen the big count down taking the place of our home page this week. It illustrates that the world is in a 365 day countdown to the absolutely crucial international climate negotiations in Copenhagen a year from now.

You can join us in bringing attention to this by grabbing the countdown banner for your website here.

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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No Greenpeace has not been hacked.

Today marks the beginning of the international climate talks in Poznan, Poland — and a 365 day countdown to what is perhaps the most important international meeting of the century, in Copenhagen. We’ve changed our homepage to reflect the importance of that.

190 nations are meeting in Poznan for 13 days trying to figure out a way forward. Time is not on their side. The task could not be harder. But failing is not an option. The world will be watching. www.greenpeace.org.nz

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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