The Nats want to wallow in the feel-good rhetoric of COP21 action to address climate change:
Government hail historic climate deal
The New Zealand Government has hailed a historic deal on climate change, saying it is “the first truly global agreement on climate change”.
Climate Change Minister Tim Groser described the agreement as a huge and historic step forward because all countries had agreed to take ambitious action on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. …
And the reality? Well what a surprise:
Mining to continue despite climate deal – PM
Mr Key told Morning Report New Zealand’s significant steps on emission reduction would not involve cutting back on the mining of oil, gas and coal.
…
“New Zealand could, of course, just stop producing oil and gas and coal but realistically if we did that I don’t believe it would stop it being consumed. I think the rest of the world would just fill the very small gap we would leave.” …
So much for “ambitious action”. Instead we get the same useless excuses. But wait, there’s more:
While the aspirational 1.5C target was more aggressive than some had hoped for, Groser did not believe any drastic changes to New Zealand’s energy policy were required as a result.
“Our proposal is aimed at a gradual and progressive grinding down of the level of emissions, like other countries…
“We’re not going to try to get to 1.5 with one hit in our next iteration of climate change policy, so I don’t think actually it changes anything at all in that respect.”
So much for ambitious action. New Zealand’s targets would commit the world to 3 to 4 degrees of warming or more. Obviously committing to a traget of 1.5 degrees doesn’t change “anything at all”. Of course. Back to:
Groser said there was no need to reconsider agriculture’s omission from the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), as “not a single country in the world” was charging the sector for biological emissions and the Government’s focus was on investing in R&D to improve agricultural emissions.
So much for ambitious action. Our huge agricultural emissions will remain outside the ETS.
Groser said Kiwis would eventually notice the impact of the climate deal when the Government “tightened up” the ETS, leading to higher carbon charges.
“New Zealanders are going to see, eventually, they’ll be paying higher prices through their electricity bills and through their fuel bills for the carbon involved in their purchases.”
However, the Government would take a “more strategic view” with businesses and how they improved their emissions.
So much for ambitious action. Ordinary people will pay more, but businesses get a “more strategic view” – i.e. probably a free pass.
These people are unbelievable. Literally – unbelievable.
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress