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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will declare a climate change emergency in Parliament today, promising a carbon-neutral government by 2025.
The motion will declare a “climate change emergency” based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s finding that global emissions must drop dramatically to avoid more than 1.5 ° C of warming.
It will see New Zealand join 32 other countries that have declared a climate change emergency.
The motion includes a promise to “show leadership and demonstrate what is possible for other sectors of the New Zealand economy by reducing the government’s own emissions and becoming carbon neutral by 2025.”
There was a push for a climate change emergency declaration during the last term, but NZ First blocked it.
The motion itself will have no practical effect on the laws or the operation of the country, but would symbolically signal that the government viewed climate change as an emergency.
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However, Climate Change Minister James Shaw hinted last week that some sort of action would be enacted alongside the declaration.
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“One of the things we said at the time was that it was important not to have something that is purely symbolic. If you are saying that there is an emergency, recognizing that this is not the same as a civil defense emergency, it requires a response from the entire government, ”Shaw said.
Emissions are expected to rise in the next few years, but fell by 1 percent in the first year of the Labor-led government in 2018.
Shaw passed the Zero Carbon Act last term, a new overarching system for setting emissions reduction targets that created an independent Climate Change Commission, which in turn would recommend carbon budgets for governments to meet those targets.
It failed to get agriculture, one of New Zealand’s largest emitters, into the Emissions Trading Scheme, although the sector will enter the scheme by default in 2025 if another system is not created to price the cost of emissions .
ROBERT KITCHEN / Things
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will declare an emergency.
Shaw also failed to seriously change the dial on transportation emissions, as NZ First halted the proposed “fare reduction” scheme and the vehicle emissions standard.
The statement is likely to take place shortly after question time on Wednesday afternoon.
When a statement was first discussed in the last term, Ardern said he supported one, but did not make much of its importance.
“I don’t see why there should be any reason why Members of Parliament don’t want to show that this is a matter of urgency,” Ardern said.
“However, the only thing I think we need to make very clear is [is that] a statement in Parliament does not change our direction of travel. It’s what we invest in and it’s the laws we pass that make the big difference, and that’s why I think we’re making solid and good progress. “
ACT leader David Seymour said declaring an emergency would be a “marketing stunt.”
“This is a marketing gimmick that won’t stop a ton of emissions. If you have a policy, you don’t need to declare an emergency. If you have to declare an emergency, maybe your policy is not working, ”Seymour said.
