My Account
I predict that next month’s general election result will swing on familiar short-term issues such as the cost of living and law and order. However, looming on the not-so-distant horizon is an overwhelming threat: the warming of the Earth’s atmosphere from sharply increasing levels of carbon dioxide and methane (natural gas) from burning coal and petroleum.
How serious will climate change be for us, our children and our grandchildren? This question was recently answered in an authoritative 2023 study from Australia’s Monash University and published in the journal Lancet Planetary Health. There are several dimensions to climate disasters including exceptionally high temperatures, storms, floods, droughts, famine and conflict. The Monash study found that the death rate solely from exceptional temperatures will rise to five million a year, or about three times greater than Covid-19. Further, while covid deaths rose and fell within four years (2020-2023), exceptional temperatures associated with climate change will rise and rise until and unless humanity is able to reduce the rate of fossil fuel emissions.
While about 80 per cent of Kiwis are convinced that climate change is a serious threat, some of our political parties continue to disregard and dismiss this threat. So which parties have genuine climate policies in this election? A simple test of the credibility of party climate policies lies in the answers to the following questions:
• Does the policy accept and strengthen the Zero Carbon legislation demanded by the climate crisis the planet faces?
• Does the party policy have the potential to build on the strong platform of renewables projects already underway in NZ?
• Do the party policies extend the oil and gas exploration permits, which would inevitably contribute to accelerating the scale of NZ emissions?
In simple terms, the Greens, Labour, National, Pati Māori and The Opportunity Party have actual climate policies. The existing impressive renewables achievements, especially in solar, wind and hydro, are largely a credit to the Greens and Labour working together in coalition.
National, which has yet to finalise its climate policy, has committed the party to preserving and protecting the Zero Carbon legislation, plans to deliver on climate change goals and to accelerate the development of renewables. Its promise to increase the number of EV charging stations is a valuable and timely move.
Ti Pati Māori has laid out a policy for tangata whenua to be at the forefront of future climate developments and has expressly rejected oil and gas exploration. I found The Opportunities Party climate policies, while limited at this stage, to be both believable and positive.
ACT appears to be planning to demolish existing international commitments and achievements, and to wind back the clock on climate remediation. Astonishingly, ACT plans to reinstate oil and gas exploration! The ACT proposal to cut politicians flights by 25 per cent is micro-tokenism.
NZ First has no apparent climate policy and the word “climate” does not appear in their Purpose and Principles website.
A final appeal to all serious parties: this may be an opportune time to seek a degree of bipartisan climate policy to seek for the nation some assurance of climate remediation progress in the middle to long term. Any ill-informed politicians who deny or disregard climate policy need to be identified and marginalised in these elections.
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