Greater scale, speed needed to respond to climate emergency - Shaw

October 14, 2021
Green Party co-leader James Shaw.

Climate Change Minister James Shaw says the country is not responding fast enough to climate change. 

His words to Breakfast come ahead of his appearance at the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow. 

In the wake of the Emissions Reduction Plan discussion document opening for consultation on Wednesday, presenter John Campbell said he spent hours canvassing opinion on it.

He said the overwhelming consensus was the Government, whose prime minister spoke of climate change as her generation's nuclear free moment, is not responding with the urgency many had hoped for. 

When asked if the Government was responding with the urgency Shaw had hoped he would be able to effect as co-leader of the Green Party, Shaw had the following response: "Look as Green Party co-leader I've said for years that we're not responding to the climate emergency at the scale, the speed, which the science demands of us.

"Of course the science itself, every year, sharpens that up for us," he said. 

"We even say in this document the proposals outlined in [it] don't yet get us to within where we need to be and that's why we're asking people to put in their ideas and say what else can we do here."

When asked if leadership rather than more consulation was needed, Shaw said the Government had a legal obligation to consult the public on the plan. 

"If I could just snap my fingers and write the plan, I would love that, but this is a massive cross-Government effort involving about a dozen ministers and twice as many Government agencies.

The Climate Change Minister's comments come in the wake of the Emissions Reduction Plan discussion document going out for consultation.

"If we'd just written the plan and said 'here it is, folks' then I think we'd be slammed for not including people." 

Greenpeace on Wednesday said the consultation move was "hot air" and "bulls**t". 

It said the discussion document was " full of meaningless waffle that won’t turn the tide on an accelerating climate crisis".

It said the proposals "does little to broach the conversation on reducing agricultural emissions ".

Campbell said National on the other hand had described the plan as a "Green Party fever dream" because it reached into every aspect of Kiwis' lives. 

The Emissions Reduction Plan aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across energy, transport, waste, agriculture, construction and financial services.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said they wanted to prioritise ideas "that save people money, like cleaner energy that leads to lower power bills".

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