Government is paying lip service to climate change

Written By: - Date published: 11:29 am, July 14th, 2024 - 6 comments
Categories: act, climate change, Environment, ETS, national, politicans, same old national, science, simeon brown - Tags:

This week has shown the Government’s many and varied views on climate change.

On Monday Simeon Brown, who has been busy battling road cones and speed limits which actually save lives, celebrated the introduction of a Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage framework. Relying on technology that does not exist to justify putting off that which needs to be done now is peak Simeon.

On Tuesday Climate Change Minister Simon Watts showed the depth of the Government’s thinking by releasing a three page brochure outlining its collective thoughts. If the Government is at that level of thinking the country is well and truly stuffed.

The plan contains five core pillars including these doozies:

  • infrastructure is resilient and communities are well prepared
  • credible markets support the climate transition
  • clean energy is abundant and affordable
  • world-leading climate innovation boosts the economy, and
  • nature-based solutions address climate change.

If they want resilient infrastructure and well prepared communities then why did they abandon Three Waters?

If they believe that credible markets should support the climate transition when why has Agriculture, which produces half of the Country’s emissions, been excluded?

If they want clean energy to be abundant and affordable then why do they want to reintroduce off shore oil and gas drilling and open up coal mines in pristine DOC land?

If they want world-leading climate innovation to boost the economy when why have they slashed Science Research budgets in many areas?

And if they want to support nature-based solutions to address climate change they why do they allow the continued draining of wetlands and refuse to protect trees?

The brochure is PR designed so they can try and persuade the ill informed that they care about what is happening to the climate.

And there continue to be these announcements by Government members suggesting that many do not care at all about climate change. Or even worse they are prepared to stir up culture wars against needed action for political advantage.

Consider anything that Simeon Brown does.

The latest example is Act MP and Farmer Mark Cameron celebrating that his bill preventing Regional Councils from taking into account climate change when preparing their plans has been lodged.

From Rural News:

Cameron points out that currently, councils can use the RMA to impose a patchwork of restrictions on the way Kiwis use their land, all in the name of reducing emissions.

“This was the result of amendments to the RMA progressed under the previous Government. Property rights were sacrificed to the climate gods, in a way that wouldn’t even reduce net emissions.

“It’s not feasible to have regional councils trying to save the world’s climate. In fact, it’s hopeless, because emissions are already managed nationally under the Emissions Trading Scheme. If one council cracks down on emissions, it just pushes carbon-intensive activity someplace else. And councils aren’t equipped to consider carbon offsets that businesses might have in other parts of the country.”

He points out that ACT has long said the most cost-effective way to manage emissions is through nationally co-ordinated carbon pricing, technological innovation, and international action – not complex land use restrictions via the RMA.

“This bill is just another way to allow farmers and people working on the land to get on with what they do best, without needless layers of bureaucracy and council diktats.”

The bill is not available and the details are unknown. But the magnitude of the climate change problem is such that all means, national as well as local should be used.

And current national policies relating to agriculture are clearly inadequate. The bill is obviously an attempt to continue with this and to stop farmers from even paying for a portion caused by greenhouse gas emissions from their activities.

The trend is clear. The Government is full of vague waffly aspirational sounding PR spin when talking about climate change. But as shown by Simeon Brown’s and Mark Cameron’s activities they will kneecap as much policy as they can to stop emission reduction policies from working.

6 comments on “Government is paying lip service to climate change ”

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  1. aj 1
    14 July 2024 at 6:37 pm

    If they want resilient infrastructure and well prepared communities then why did they abandon Three Waters?

    Spite, and ideology. Just like the ferry decision, and a number of others.

    Love this guy.

    Change is going to happen. That is inevitable. Let’s hope this time there is a groundswell of public understanding of what is truly at stake, and that more modern, fit for purpose, efficient structures are created that won’t obliterate peoples’ finances.

    Entrenched three waters thinking has led to a Waterloo crisis

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/350340701/entrenched-three-waters-thinking-has-led-waterloo-crisis

  2. georgecom 2
    14 July 2024 at 10:04 pm

    'ACT has long said the most cost-effective way to manage emissions is through nationally co-ordinated carbon pricing'

    so the simple question for ACT, what price are you going to set per ton of carbon to push emissions down to reach our 2030 targets and targets in further years? Either you will set a price that drives real reduction, or prove themselves mealy mouthed do nothings. Which will it be Mr Cameron?

  3. Maurice 3
    15 July 2024 at 12:34 am

    The huge 'problem' with Council water supplies is that everyone expects what ever comes out the tap is fit for human consumption. This means that ALL the water used for flushing the loo, washing clothing, watering the garden/washing the car has to be of the same potable standard. Very wasteful and completely unnecessary. If we drank bottled water and used it for cooking that necessity would disappear and a much lower standard of water could be available for the more mundane uses. Much less expensive as well.

    A number of smaller Councils have their water supplies and sewage disposal relatively well sorted. It is left dominated hell holes like Wellington who now expect the nett tax payer to bail out their years of neglect. 40% of Wellington's water LEAKS out of their ill maintained pipes …. and they want the rest of us to pay for fixing their failures.

    • gsays 3.1
      15 July 2024 at 6:56 am

      Bottled water!

      What rot.

      Resilience built into building codes is a far more realistic solution than plastic packaged hydration.

      Small water tanks, grey water systems any number of permaculture solutions if we can wrestle the building code out of Fletcher's grubby greedy hands.

    • Drowsy M. Kram 3.2
      15 July 2024 at 11:37 am

      If we drank bottled water and used it for cooking that necessity would disappear and a much lower standard of water could be available for the more mundane uses.

      You're on to it Maurice – I remember some graduate students coming to study in Aotearoa NZ (from less well-off countries in the Middle East/Asia/Africa) initially being surprised/dubious that water used for showering here was safe to drink.

      Bottled water is just the sort of 'compromise' many Kiwis will reluctantly have to get used to, as past conveniences become uneconomic. NZ's overshoot day is the 11th of April, and overshoot comes with consequences – ask the good folk in Queenstown.

      https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/502386/queenstown-cryptosporidium-outbreak-four-more-weeks-of-boiling-water

      Maybe our CoC govt can issue ‘bottom feeders’ with vouchers, as we sink or swim.

      https://www.safeswim.org.nz/

      https://maps.greenpeace.org/maps/aotearoa/know-your-nitrate/

      Water: What are National and Act doing in the shadows?
      National and Act’s policies on drinking water would reduce protections and ignore the recommendations of the inquiry into the Havelock North campylobacter outbreak

      Kia ora Kiwi,
      Whether it's a relaxed stroll along Sydney's beautiful beaches or enjoying Melbourne's delicious cuisine, we've got your ticket to an Aussie escape with our sale on now.

      Alas, there's no escaping the interdependence of civilisation and spaceship Earth.

      Titanic lessons for Spaceship Earth to account for human behavior in institutional design [2 July 2024]
      “As long as man was small in numbers and limited in technology, he could realistically regard the earth as an infinite reservoir, an infinite source of inputs and an infinite cesspool for outputs. Today we can no longer make this assumption. Earth has become a space ship, not only in our imagination but also in the hard realities of the social, biological, and physical system in which man is enmeshed.”
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      We are all extensions of Earth, and everything we do is looping back to change the planet in some way, so we are empowered in that sense.

  4. Georgecom 4
    17 July 2024 at 5:10 pm

    If anyone has paid anything more than scant attention to national-acts draft emissions reduction 'plan' they will see the lip service.

    Its flagship climate change policy, more ekectric car charging stations, will reduce emissions by 0.01 million tons from 2025 to 2030. Thats 10,000 tons across a 5 year stretch. It ramps up to only 200,000 tons by 2035.

    If those reductions were a minor part od the govts plans then things would not be so bad. But those reductions are from nationals Flagship climate change policy. Lip service? A mild way to describe it. Piss poor pathetic might be more accurate?

    National seems to be acting on the basis that 2050 date and we do not need to worry to much until then. The reality that we are feeling the effects of climate change now, and need to act with some urgency now, seems not to have sunk in for them.

    However much people might have wanted to complain about the last Lab/green govt and its action on climate change, i think the difference to a nat/act govt is pretty clear.

    This do little approach is one that the do nothing john key govt should have adopted. We dont have time anymore for a national government. As things stand, a vote for national = a vote for a cooked planet.

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