Simon Wilson has written a scathing article in the Herald this morning behind the paywall suggesting that for purely political reasons National will frustrate and stymie action on climate change.
From the article:
The past two weeks have in my opinion exposed the biggest climate change problem in this country. Cows? Nope. Cars? Nope. I believe it’s the National Party.
This would be laughable if it wasn’t for the pain it will cause. And not just environmental pain: in my view National’s position on climate change will undermine our economy and damage us socially. Delays now will lead to crisis management later and the people worst affected will include farmers, coastal dwellers and the poor.
As long as National holds to this position, to me it demonstrates it is unfit to govern.
National says it knows we have to combat climate change but undermines every effort to address the issue. Sneers at plans to promote rail. Refuses to endorse the Zero Carbon Bill. Claims it will reintroduce new rights to fossil fuel exploration.
And most in the media realise this.
Things are that bad that Bridges has said that he does not believe there is a climate emergency and is claiming that Labour’s policy is to kill all the cows.
Clearly National is looking over at Australia and thinking the Scomo’s victory was a triumph of denialism and anti intellectualism over reality based policy making and therefore they should do the same. Any tactic where something as insane as the Adani mine can swing a result will be fair game if you are born to rule.
I previously described the mine and its effect on the Australian election in these terms:
The Adani mine shows everything that is wrong with Australian politics. Put aside the fact that if completed it would release huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere as well as wreck the Great Barrier reef not to mention fragile local habitats it makes no economic sense whatsoever. The price of coal is crashing. No merchant bank would go near the project, it appears that even merchant banks have minimum ethical standards.
Adani claimed originally that 10,000 jobs would be created but this has subsequently been reduced to 1,468. Spending billions to create so few jobs makes no sense.
It also had open rights to use artesian water, that commodity that will become more and more valuable in Australia. It has been estimated that the mine would use 4.6 billion litres of water a year. Consent was rushed through by the LNP three days before the election even though the report relied on had major faults. From the Conversation thread linked to above:
Details leaked to the ABC showed the review actually found that Adani’s modelling was “not suitable to ensure the outcomes sought by the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Protection Act are met” and that advice for the approval was rushed through in a single afternoon.
The review found that the modelling was “not sufficiently robust”, over-predicting flows back into the aquifiers it was drawing on and using incorrect measurements for calibration.
The mine owner had also sought a billion dollar government loan to pay for the required rail infrastructure. Thankfully the Queensland Labor Government has killed this off.
The project should be terminal and put to death. Instead of this it has arguably helped return an incompetent inhumane right wing Government back to power.
But don’t be surprised if we see some similar sort of issue arise in New Zealand. In fact off sea oil drilling in Taranaki is already serving this function for National.
And the evidence of National’s obstructionism is clear. On issue after issue relating to climate change National is obstructing and distorting and running attack lines.
I know this is what some consider to be good oppositioning. But as Wilson says the Government’s proposals are not radical. For instance the proposed introduction of Agriculture into the ETS is tepid in the extreme although it is a start in the right direction. And the car fleet changes are very mainstream when compared to what is happening overseas.
But to seek power by attacking policies that now more than ever are urgently overdone overdue is the definition of bad faith politiking. It is a shame really. This issue is far too important for business as usual politicking to occur.
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