Helen Clark on A Zero-Carbon Future

Written By: - Date published: 8:10 am, December 5th, 2015 - 48 comments
Categories: climate change, global warming, helen clark, International, leadership - Tags: , , ,

Good piece by Helen Clark on Huff Post:

A Zero-Carbon Future

Soon I will be making my way to the Paris Climate Conference where it is hoped that a new global climate change agreement will be concluded. The Paris Agreement has the potential to put our economies and societies on a path to green, risk-informed, and inclusive growth, and move us all towards a zero-carbon, sustainable future. The world must seize this opportunity.

The main purpose of the climate conference, called COP21, is to agree on a comprehensive deal which places all countries on the same long-term development path. This bears repeating: Paris itself will not solve climate change. Instead, Paris will lay out the pathway towards that ultimate goal, the course we need to stay on in the years and decades to come.

So what must this pathway contain? It must support green economic growth which is driven by innovation from forward-thinking sectors. It must support sustainable jobs. It needs institutions which encourage all levels of society–from civil society to public administrations and the private sector–to work together to tackle problems. It must contain the tools which enable us to adapt to our changing world.

The old argument that addressing climate change will hurt jobs and economies is unconvincing. Green and inclusive growth is the way of the future. …
…
Paris must be a catalyst for stepped up climate action. The world must move towards a zero-carbon future. There is no room for short-sightedness or a lack of ambition. When a new climate deal is reached in December, as we hope and expect, let us all roll up our sleeves and get to work to ensure that Paris is a decisive step forward on the journey to zero-carbon and sustainable development.

Worth repeating – “There is no room for short-sightedness or a lack of ambition”. Go read the whole piece on Huff Post.

48 comments on “Helen Clark on A Zero-Carbon Future ”

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  1. Ad 1
    5 December 2015 at 8:40 am

    An actual world leader

  2. b waghorn 2
    5 December 2015 at 9:10 am

    Nice words from a woman who kept the greens on the outside.

  3. Macro 3
    5 December 2015 at 9:18 am

    While your at Huffington Post – you can also read an even better piece by another NZer Cindy Baxter who is also at COP21 – Her article points to the hypocrisy of EXXONMOBILE the funder of Climate change denial.
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cindy-baxter/exxonmobil-funder-of-clim_b_8684320.html

  4. One Two 4
    5 December 2015 at 9:39 am

    The main purpose of the climate conference, called COP21 , is to agree on a comprehensive deal which places all countries on the same long-term development path

    Whatever the agenda21 might be, Helen is aware of what it represents and whomever is pulling the strings

    Clarks hollow words are nothing more than a global government advertisment

    She is no leader, and never was

  5. Pat 5
    5 December 2015 at 10:41 am

    it is telling the word “growth” persists

  6. savenz 6
    5 December 2015 at 11:08 am

    all true, but how does this fit with her apparent enforcement of TPPA which actually rewards and maintains polluters profits and makes countries open to legal action for protecting their environment?

    How does TPPA allow the freedom of new and more innovative technologies to overtake outdated polluters when polluters can then sue (or threaten to sue) the government for their loss of potential profits from changing to better solutions?

    • Leftie 6.1
      5 December 2015 at 11:36 am

      Put that question to the National government.
      What enforcement ? Helen Clark said ONLY if the deal was good for New Zealand.

      • savenz 6.1.1
        5 December 2015 at 11:45 am

        Although I admired Helen when she was PM of NZ, by standing next to John Key and enforcing TPP which will probably get her the BIG job at the UN, she sold out Labour, NZ and the environment.

        Even the the biggest PR machine can not hide that TPPA does not mention climate change and is there to mitigate polluters losses IF countries move in time to actually tackle climate change.

        JK as an ex share broker is at Paris and brokering the TPPA at any cost to make sure that all those shares in those big companies don’t become worthless overnight as government’s start cottoning on that they must act with climate change and the environment. The TPPA is the insurance.

        • Tautuhi 6.1.1.2
          5 December 2015 at 12:14 pm

          I doubt whether any of them have read and fully understand the TPPA Agreement and how it will affect society, most just listen to their advisors and go with what they say, we the NZ Public are the ones that suffer through this flawed ideology, the neo-liberal experiment worldwide has failed the average man in the street and has merely enriched the chosen few who were the architects of neo-liberalism.

        • Leftie 6.1.1.3
          5 December 2015 at 12:15 pm

          @Savenz
          What makes you think John key is an “EX” share broker?
          I do not disagree with you over the evils of the TPPA but while Helen Clark stood next to John key she also said ONLY if the deal is good for New Zealand, how is that “enforcing” it?

      • Manuka AOR 6.1.2
        5 December 2015 at 12:01 pm

        She also noted, specifically, that she is not responsible for the way the media and others spin anything she may have said.

        • Leftie 6.1.2.1
          5 December 2015 at 12:16 pm

          @Manuka AOR
          +1

        • savenz 6.1.2.2
          5 December 2015 at 2:45 pm

          @leftie and Manuka

          Yes Helen was careful not to fully endorse the deal. But a person as politically astute as Helen Clark ‘accidentally’ standing next to Key in itself was endorsing the TPPA.

          The only way to get out of it, is if she was to say she has read TPPA and does NOT think it is a good deal. But that would anger Obama, world bank and others and end her BIG job prospects.

          Clarks actions served to paralysed the Labour party into indecision about TPPA which could have been (and possibly still can be) the clear policy to differentiate them from the Natz and unite the left co alit ion and to close the Labour neoliberal chapter that started with Rogernomics and clearly any whiff of it, is clearly still unpopular to Labour voters. (Hence no mention of it, in Little’s speech about what is great about Labour).

          Labour and in particular Little, needs political courage but are hampered at every turn.

          • Leftie 6.1.2.2.1
            5 December 2015 at 5:54 pm

            @Savenz

            You spinning it, doesn’t help. Wasn’t John key standing in Helen Clark’s NY office? So how can it be “accidental” for Helen Clark to stand next to John key when he and his photo op crew were in her office? So again, how is it endorsing it?

            As pointed out by Manuka AOR, Clark said she is not responsible for the way the media and others have spun it.

            You’re living in the past, Roger Douglas is long gone and you realize that Helen Clark is no longer the PM or Labour’s leader, don’t you? You are focusing on the wrong person, and the wrong party. The focus and emphasis should be on the current PM JOHN KEY and putting pressure on his NATIONAL GOVERNMENT to not ratify the TPPA. To do otherwise is just wasting time and being counter productive because it doesn’t stop John key and his government from doing what they are doing, does it?

            National must love people like you who never really hold them to account, but always attack Labour instead.

            • Chris 6.1.2.2.1.1
              5 December 2015 at 6:27 pm

              And National must love people like you who show uncritical indifference to an ineffective opposition.

            • savenz 6.1.2.2.1.2
              5 December 2015 at 10:40 pm

              @Leftie actually National love people like you who don’t care what Labour’s policies are and allow Labour to coast along directionless on real issues of the day and calling it ‘broad church’ when a significant proportion of Labour voters have now left, members have left, supporters have left and the message of Labour changing it’s ways seems to be ignored by a dwindling vocal Labour group clinging onto this idea – the Labour desertion does not matter, real Labour policy does not matter, real issues do not matter. Labour is not broad church – it is an empty church.

              However you can feel ok, because in the UK the Blairites lost the last election with a similar confusing Labour proposal and now we see that the Labour split of Blairite Labourites howling for blood and bombing to be further spilt in Syria – ignoring the fact that France was bombing in Syria before the terrorist attacks. (maybe that was the reason they were targeted rather than UK?). The Blairites are doing the conservatives job for them, just like the Neoliberal Labourites are doing the Natz job for them.

              Now the UK can bomb Syria too, to get the terrorists out in force in the UK! Good move!! Get the whole of the EU bombing and the US and OZ and NZ of course and start a holy war, just like Bin Larden wanted! sarc.

              And as for UK voters, the conservatives can blame the Blairites for the huge mess, Tony Blair supported the war, Blairites wanted the bombing too, and so forth. The UK voters did not want Blair to enter the Iraq war and marched against it. The Weapons of mass destruction were fabricated and David Kelly was destroyed by the Labour government for saying so. Think how many UK Labour supporters felt betrayed by Tony Blair!

              So you can back NZ Labour’s confused stance on TPP but if you want them to win the next election, they must say NO to TPP CLEARLY (the txt is out now) and offer a truly different vision than the Natz, otherwise a considerable amount of voters will not in all conscience be able to support Labour as a viable alternative. p.s even National voters don’t want NZ to sign.

              “A 3 News Reid Research poll shows 54 percent of voters disagree with the controversial 12-nation free trade agreement.

              34-percent of voters are on board, while 12 percent are undecided.

              Even some National voters have doubts about the agreement — 23 percent don’t want New Zealand to sign up”

              http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/national/new-poll-reveals-more-kiwis-doubting-tpp/

              Clearly while Labour can’t say offer a clear No to TPPA then the Natz are hardly going to lose any votes over signing TPPA!

              • Leftie …
                6 December 2015 at 12:44 am

                Feel better now after that rant? It’s not the Labour Party signing the TPPA, so got any views on the self serving corrupt Key led National government, who is? And what makes you think National will not lose votes over signing the TPPA?

  7. savenz 7
    5 December 2015 at 11:49 am

    And the insurance is underwritten by governments and funded by taxpayers.

    Worldwide taxpayers have already bailed out the banks in the financial crisis, now worldwide taxpayers are being asked to underwrite polluters and GM companies potential losses.

    and it is not local courts that decide the outcomes.

    Free market or Fake market in the TPPA?

    • Leftie 7.1
      5 December 2015 at 12:19 pm

      @Savenz

      It’s always been fake, as there is no such thing as a “free market” anyway, TPPA or not, it always comes at a cost.

  8. Colonial Viper 8
    5 December 2015 at 11:57 am

    We are moving toward a non carbon-emissions future: oil is gone in 40 years and coal in 60.

    Of course, we will have cooked by then, but ah well.

  9. Tautuhi 9
    5 December 2015 at 12:17 pm

    With the TPPA it will all end up in the taxpayers lap, with foreign corporates having the ability to sue our Government. Taxpayers guaranteeing corporate welfare and protection.

  10. galeandra 10
    5 December 2015 at 2:35 pm

    For much of her nine long years she presided over a government that, among other failures, obliged us to pay for the pollution of farmers who wouldn’t pay even a smidgen towards the research to overcome their methane problem. Remember that prat Adern (uncle of you-know-who) and his fart-tax protest? Her fancy words now are just institutionally required hot-air. When push-came-to-shove she failed her character test a number of times and we have all already begun to pay the price.

  11. Draco T Bastard 11
    5 December 2015 at 2:40 pm

    The take away from that article is: All these small people and poor countries are doing what’s needed, why can’t the rich?

  12. savenz 12
    5 December 2015 at 2:51 pm

    You have to wonder how Labour’s JOBS, JOBS, JOBS works with

    “TPP opens floodgates to unregulated temporary foreign workers

    CWAG also expressed concern that unlike other trade deals, the TPP includes developing countries such as Vietnam and Peru, and corporations will use the intra-company transfer provisions of the trade agreement to bring in low-wage workers and displace Canadians.

    The minimum wage is 65 cents per hour in Vietnam and $1.27 per hour in Peru.

    The TPP also extends right to work to work privileges to individuals from twelve partner nations and their spouses.

    Other commentators have issued similar warning about the deal.”

    http://thinkpol.ca/2015/10/11/702tpp-tfwp/

    • b waghorn 12.1
      5 December 2015 at 5:07 pm

      Are you saying that a company could bring in overseas workers and pay them the hourly rate they would get in there home country ?

      • weka 12.1.1
        5 December 2015 at 8:50 pm

        Pharmac must be protected

        Corporations cannot successfully sue the Government for regulating in the public interest

        New Zealand maintains the right to restrict sales of farm land and housing to non-resident foreign buyers

        The Treaty of Waitangi must be upheld

        Meaningful gains are made for our farmers in tariff reductions and market access.

        http://campaign.labour.org.nz/our_position_on_the_tpp

        Little,

        He said he would fight “tooth and nail” over what he said was an issue of sovereignty.

        “We will not support anything that takes away the right of New Zealand politicians in our democracy to make laws in the interests of New Zealand,” he told reporters.

        Later on in his opening remarks he said ” “My commitment to you is we will not support or sign up to anything that cuts against the sovereign rights of New Zealand.”

        http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11541301

        • b waghorn 12.1.1.1
          6 December 2015 at 7:22 am

          I have to admit I can’t get my head around tpp and because of that I’ve avoided commenting on it. It seems to me to be a bit of a non event with few gains and vague possibilities of bad things happening.

          • weka 12.1.1.1.1
            6 December 2015 at 10:38 am

            I largely agree with what others are saying, that the TPP is a serious threat. I do think some of the examples are overstated though. Probably the worst thing is that no-one really knows what is going to happen (which is another big reason to reject the TPP. Any contractual behemoth that can’t be understood and effects predicted should be put down).

            The point of my comment above was simply to say that Labour are still opposing the TPP and there is not really any contradiction between their focus on jobs and their stance on the TPP (unless you take Jane Kelsey’s view that Labour are incompetent when it comes to understanding the TPP).

  13. srylands 13
    5 December 2015 at 8:27 pm

    So under her Government why did she and her Ministers express no intent to reduce NZ greenhouse emissions, presiding over relentless increases, in both emissions and carbon intensity?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_New_Zealand#/media/File:NZ%27s_emissions_over_time_1990-2012.png

    Talk is cheap. And all she did for 9 years in Government was talk. By 2005 it was clear that the 5th Labour Government’s carbon reduction goals were a mirage.