Environmental groups demand immediate climate action, call on political parties to work together
More than 30 environmental groups have come together and thrown down the gauntlet to all of Aotearoa’s political parties, calling for urgent climate action with a 10-point plan.
The plan is calling for an immediate reduction of emissions, restoration of native environments and better support for communities dealing with the worst impacts of climate change.
Greenpeace executive director Russell Norman told AM the crisis has reached a critical point and polluting industries such as the dairy sector need to stop avoiding regulation.
“Agriculture is half of all of our emissions and there’s been precious little done to cut emissions out of that sector.”
Norman told AM recent devastating weather events have been made worse by climate change, and is urging the government to act now.
“We need action by the New Zealand Government to play its part in terms of cutting emissions globally. And so this lays out a pathway to do that.”
Norman said now is the time to regulate polluting industries because “when has the polluting industry voluntarily agreed to cut its pollution? It never happens. Never has happened in the history of the world”.
“The only way you get progress to deal with pollution is you regulate.”
The coalition includes the likes of Greenpeace, Forest and Bird, Oxfam and 350 Aotearoa.
The 10-point plan:
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- End new oil, gas and coal exploration and extraction on land and at sea, and commit to the Port Vila Call for a Just Transition to a Fossil Fuel-Free Pacific.
- Accelerate the just transition to public and locally-owned, nature-friendly, renewable electricity, including by providing grants-based and equitable finance for new renewables, such as household solar and community energy projects.
- Transition towards high-density, low emissions communities by making public transport fares free and prioritising investment in walking, cycling, and accessible public transport infrastructure over road spending.
- Transition intensive dairying to low-emissions farming by phasing out synthetic nitrogen fertiliser and imported animal feed, reducing herd size, and banning new large-scale irrigation schemes.
- Ensure our laws reflect the urgency required to address the climate crisis by strengthening the Emissions Trading Scheme, legally requiring all local and central government decisions to keep warming below 1.5 degrees celsius, and establishing meaningful environmental bottom lines in new planning rules.
- Protect communities by making room for rivers to flood safely and enabling a managed retreat from flood-prone areas, through stopping new development in coastal and river flood zones.
- Stand with affected communities in the Pacific by renewing and scaling up our climate finance commitments, with new and additional funding to address loss and damage caused by climate change.
- Maximise native forests’ role in absorbing carbon and in protecting communities from flooding and erosion by effectively controlling deer, goats, and possums on all public land, and implementing a native reforestation programme.
- Preserve the ocean’s crucial role in storing carbon by shifting to ecosystem-based fisheries management that ends bottom trawling and restores kelp forests by reversing all kina barrens.
- Protect the role wetlands and estuaries play in storing carbon and softening extreme weather event impacts by doubling the area of wetlands in Aotearoa New Zealand.
As election 2023 edges closer, Norman says the 10-point plan is to put pressure on Labour and National to act if either is elected.
“There is [an] opportunity to make progress with those two parties. It’s just we need to keep the pressure on them. And then of course, then there’s the influence of other parties as well, which could change the agenda.”
The most glorious thing happened this morning.
The ever brilliant Russell Norman was on the AM Show and was challenged on the latest attempt by Greenpeace to force politicians to do something meaningful on climate change with the stock standard dairy propaganda myth that NZs emissions are .7% and we feed 40million people so let corporate dairy continue to steal water, pollute water and create more climate change gasses.
This line ignores the reality that Agriculture emissions are our problem…
…that the political power of the vested agricultural corporate interests have mangled to postpone any emissions scheme for 21 years (which will become 26 if National win in October)…
…and inflates the argument that if we culled cows the 40million other mouths we feed would get their product from places that farm more intensively than us meaning more pollution you stupid greenies.
Norman’s take down of this Dairy propaganda was just ruthless…
“NZ is the biggest seller of a simple commodity called dried milk powder, the cheapest of the cheap, and if you look at what is happening in food production around the world they are looking for more environmentally sound food products.
They are looking for higher value products.
We’ve gone down the pathway of the lowest quality commodity you can produce in the world.
NZ is mid range in terms of its environmental cost per kilogram of milk solids, there is nothing special about it, and we do feed a small number of people compared to the billions on the planet and the economics is very clear that you can be just as profitable if you pull back on the stock rate, pull back on the amount of fertiliser and actually produce a higher product.
Organics is in fact doing incredibly well globally, so why don’t we become a producer of dairy rather than the producer of the cheapest commodity on the planet which results in us trashing our water ways and being big climate producers, that’s a better pathway isn’t it?
…he’s so right!
We always ignore that the 40million number is based on us selling milk powder as a base line ingredient filler for the manufactured food industry. The PR spin pretends it’s wholesome NZ cheese and milk and meat those 40million are eating when the truth is the vast majority of what we export is basic bitch milk powder used as a filler ingredient!
The danger, as TDB has been pointing out for years is grant this is a sunset industry and the millisecond those big manufactured food players can make a synthetic dairy ingredient, the entire industry will go belly up…
The dairy industry’s biggest export success may also be the cause of its greatest future concern, as whole milk powder can now be copied and replaced by precision fermentation methods, research shows.
Anna Benny, technical account manager at The Kellogg Rural Leadership Scheme, said in a recent paper that the dairy industry was ripe for disruption because it was over reliant on exports of whole milk powder.
Whole milk powder could be replaced by proteins produced from precision fermentation, that in future would be cheaper and more climate friendly.
…we are economically dependent on an industry that will become a taxi in the age of uber.
There are better ways for us to be advancing dairy but all the industry wants is the cheap option that causes huge pollution and are relying on their political muscle to never have to change.
My bet is that the same shit will keep happening right up until the breaking news headlines that researchers have a synthetic version of our milk powder and the entire country has a share market plunge that is a depression era level meltdown.
And when that happens, oh sweet Jesus won’t the Farmers scream then!
PS – My favourite bit from Fieldays this year (other than Chippy’s brutal takedown of Luxon) was a couple complaining to RNZ that the regulations were costing them too much. When asked what they were doing at Fieldays, they said they were buying a spa pool.
Glorious.
Can’t see the water for the bubbles.
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FFS:
“Maximise native forests’ role in absorbing carbon and in protecting communities from flooding and erosion by effectively controlling deer, goats, and possums on all public land, and implementing a native reforestation programme.”
This is exactly the opposite of what they did in the 2019 firearms law change banning semi auto pest control rifles. All pest controllers have been using inadequate rifles ever since and failing to do the job efficiently, it would be just like banning chainsaws and making forest worker use axes, because axes were fine 200 years ago, no one needs a chainsaw (and imagine the damage you could do with a chainsaw on a busy Auckland street if you wanted to kill and maim people???!!!).
I know of at least 200ha of native forest previously being restored in this district that has been abandoned and returned to sheep grazing simply because the Govt took away the ability to control the wild deer and goats adequately, so the farmers said may as well let the sheep and cattle eat everything rather than just feral feed deer and goats. I lost 30,000 tree seedlings in the first year after the law change for the same reason. Every time I mentioned it on social media I got hounded down by woke fools who’s only experience with firearms is watching rambo movies, and made their pontifications based on their own personal profound ignorance.
The last Govt was incredibly stupid, those of us who used semi auto rifles to protect our ecology were actively told we were part of the ‘gun lobby’ and the Govt would not listen or consider to our concerns at the time. Now guess what, we were right, our forests are getting destroyed, but mention this in public and we’re still apparently the bad guys.
Right so absolutely no dispute about the comments around the bs we are fed about feeding 40mil and we are just awesome and efficient at producing milk powder
“End new oil, gas and coal exploration” — Thereby increasing the cost of mass electrification?
“Nature-friendly, renewable electricity” — So how many new copper, silver, zinc and bauxite mines, then?
“Reducing herd size and banning new large-scale irrigation schemes” — And will you subsidise the bankrupt farms and the understocked foodbanks? Will there be vast rows of new factories to absorb the unemployed?
Why is it even necessary to explain what is logical.
What a world we, man and non-man, live in!!
It is not BS that we produce and export quality products.
Taking marketing advice from an activist is beyond silly.
Milk powder is a quality product? When did that happen?
OK.
We pay others to take the milk power.
Absolutely,what would Russell Norman know about international trade given his opinion displays total ignorance.
Adding value often results in lower net returns due many factors including direct and indirect costs,currency relativities.
Good heavens Wheel please refrain from commenting on issues that are clearly beyond your ability to comprehend.
Do as I say not as I do….right Bob!
I do what I say so yes.
….because it turns out right-wing nut jobs hate free speech.
No on the contrary I’m pointing out the blatant stupidity of some comments,I’m a free speech advocate which the Labour Government are not.
“All pest controllers have been using inadequate rifles ever since and failing to do the job efficiently”
I thought they made exceptions for professional pest controllers in the gun regs?
Professionals, not farmers. So if you see a mob of goats, you phone up your local professional pest controller, see if they have someone available in the next month, arrange a time and then pay accordingly when they turn up, even if the goats have eaten their fill and moved on.
Have you tried getting a P endorsement? It isn’t easy.
https://www.firearmssafetyauthority.govt.nz/manage-and-apply/licensing/endorsements
… and then you have to import a suitable rifle, magazines & spares.
Very well said Ben.
Thanks Ben. I a m getting too old to articulate the reality of protecting native forest areas. I have spent my adult life doing exactly that and would not use firearms at all if I didn’t need them for pest control.
The costs of poison licensing these days are way too much and far too convoluted in the processes of obtaining and upgrading them Thanks for fuck all Labour.
I didn’t see Russel but this is excellent.
What part?
The “plan” or the criticism of marketing strategy?
Why is it excellent?
Less credibility than the flat earth society.
Russel has always been ” excellent ” and he is sorely missed as a politician and we need him and many like him in parliament.
Why?
You did not make the case and neither does he.
He is an activist.
” He is an activist. ”
Yeah he sure is and we could do with more activism than shit that passes for government in this country namely the status quo donated corruption we have right now.
I like a lot of what Norman has to say most days but this morning he looked a bit hate speechy to me – Norman used the imagery of dairy farmers going around the back of the shed and smashing the legislation with a hammer.
Clever maybe but pretty yuck.
We have had 5 years of government being anti farmer and imposing rules, many completely stupid and unworkable (imposing dates to have crops in the ground for example).
More polarization and threats is not the future, there needs to be encouragement for farmers to show what they can and will do to reduce emissions.
He waka e whatever was a wasted chance ruined by government bad faith.
Bad mouthing farmers more won’t give us an enduring solution, they must be on board or the rules will change with a new government.
So elements like groinswell calling people communists for suggesting something has to be done is not creating division? It is just ridiculous how any suggestion to do something is “killing farming”.
We have been decarbonising our energy production for more than a century. And the decarbonising was accelerating until we hit a speed bump recently. These are facts. And it is good humans. Fact.
Germany picked the wrong mix of energy production (for the wrong reasons may I say) and they are now polluting more than ever during the last 30 years.
We have options, but banning fossil fuels when we still depend on fossil fuels is dumb beyond imagination.
Hard pass from me. I will continue to decarbonise my life and support government programmes that does the same but I will not sign up for mass suicide…
Unfortunately the climate hysteria(ie what is described above) will lead to a reduction in human prosperity.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/mBD8pk02DfE
Worse than that.
It will drastically affect demand and supply. (Like in: we need fewer people, or people should harden the F…. up and use a blanket)
The world economy has been decarbonising as a percentage of GDP for over a century and we are on track and have pathways to achieve NetZero.
These trends will continue and can be accelerated.
But subsidising the wealthy to encourage them to buy Teslas is not the way to achieve this.
Dairying isn’t farming. So duh, dumbasses.
‘Farming’ is the holistic management of an area of land to best exploit that land on an on-going basis by causing zero damage to or the exhaustion of it. Otherwise, again Dumbasses, you end up with non-productive waste lands which will lead to dust bowls and air, soil and water pollution. And that, will have a profound effect. Mainly, it’ll mean that the rich city scum who literally bank on their abilities to exploit the vulnerable nature of farmers and farming will be forced to go without that flash house in Remuera and the Bentley to come and go to and from it with.
If it were later in the day and I could be justifiably drunk then certainly I’d enjoy exploiting your collective profound and graphic ignorance even more.
I can honestly write that I’m increasingly gob smacked at the profound ignorance, the sheer dumbassedness of some of you. You do realise that a paddock is flat and green, right?
Today’s ‘farming’ isn’t farming because the banks and the politicians who have farmers in financial shackles insist on ever more, because farmers carry the country on their backs and in so doing work to borrow so’s city people can spend. And eat. The National party have reinvented the concept of treachery and I believe that their end is neigh and that’s why The Daily Blog and RNZ who are both playing the same game in different shorts and jerseys. Look closely at the Daily Blog. When you go to donate, you can donate via ASB.
Dairying is a scam. It’s so easy for the hyper-wealthy to exploit because Dairying is barely nuanced. There’s really no skill involved at all. Build an irrigator, pump water onto over-nitrogenized soil, artificially impregnate a cow, suck her milk out. Repeat. When’s she’s done and gone past her use-by date, she’s lean mince in one of the two supermarket duopolies for you big, flash, hi and fine city fucks to chomp back with all the entitlement of a blood sucking Tick.
Dairying specifically but intensive, over-stocking is feeding a Kiwi-As logical fallacy.
Farmers. No, not you, fuck off.
Farmers? Real and actual farmers?
Go on strike. Your very existence depends upon it. Purge the National Party parasites out of your land and your bank accounts.
China’s about to go on a war footing and one of their tactics will be to stop buying from you.
The lazy, super rich Auckland vampires who’ve been bleeding you out for generations and who fucked your traditional trading partners [Europe] over will be readying to throw you under a bus hoping to whitewash their way out of what they’ve done to you.
Your only hope is to strike. You must show your strength. And all you have to do, is to do nothing.
Climate change. Why the sudden urgency to filter cow farts? Sure, cows fart. So do we. But heavy road transport, coastal and international shipping, urban transport , etc. So why the sudden and dramatic focus on cows? Is it a tactic to distract from the real and actual problem? I’d say definitely. Absolutely.
The National Party is so corrupt that it’s a bit hard to over stress. The National Party and it’s past and present politicians and hangers-on will do anything to pass the buck down the line and unfortunately you farmers are the end of the line. You must take the brunt of an escape-from-jail narrative for the 14 multi-billionaires and the 3118 multi-billionaires with in excess of $50 million each not to mention the other 5 million or so who are in effect innocent Kiwi collaborators to a massive swindle of mind boggling proportions. I wonder, how many of those who comprise those statistics are true farmers?
Nobody is buy’n GreenWash’n anymore. They know it’s just pay-to-play environmentalism with no measures to arrest consumption.
It’s middle class feel good wank.
The water bottling industry is a very small user of New Zealand’s freshwater resource – using only 163 million litres of water, or less than 0.002% of the 10 trillion litres used annually by New Zealanders. This is the equivalent to half-a-day of water usage in Auckland.
The article from Anna Benny says it all. They have been manufacturing monoclonal antibodies like this for years. Milk protein can’t be that hard at all. It will all just come down to money.
It may be that agriculture, including dairy farms, contributes 50% of all our emissions. But agriculture contributes 50% or more of our earnings as well. Smash agriculture and smash our income Likewise. And then out of our smashed income, we have to contribute income to help the Pacific islands as well….
Greenies don’t think rational like you.
Agriculture earns 80% of overseas income receipts. The GDP often quoted here is imo a meaningless statistic.
Yes agree agriculture contributes nearly 80% of our export receipts.
Without that we are third world.
Our emissions are so low as to be meaningless yet so we can feel good we sacrifice our living standards.
Russel’s wish list is fine and dandy, but he fails to say how this utopia is to be achieved. For example:
Household solar can reduce emissions a little but in NZ it has a ‘capacity factor’ of only 14% because we live in high latitudes and under a ‘long white cloud’ for much of the time.
“Phasing out synthetic nitrogen fertiliser” and replacing it with what exactly? Doesn’t he know our food production is reliant on synthetic fertilisers and herbicides? Or is he expecting us to devolve back to the medieval era with the hard labour and malnutrition that went with it?
“now is the time to regulate polluting industries” when in fact we already regulate these industries which is why our air and water are cleaner than they’ve been for maybe 100 years. If he wants to regulate industry to death, where are to get all the wonderful products that provide us with a standard of living that was unimaginable a century ago?
As usual with the Greens – it’s light on detail and heavy on polemic.
how is exporting milk powder feeding 40 million, does our agriculture produce export goods YES (often to the detriment of kiwis) but the farmers lobby peddling porkies is risible
” My bet is that the same shit will keep happening ”
No truer a statement than that Bomber and you can apply it to not just Dairy and pollution but the people at the field days who have money to burn and are on the pigs back who continue to support the Luxons , Seymours and to a lesser extent the Chipkins / Grant monoply who represent middle management.
” My bet is that the same shit will keep happening ”
Is why whatever the result after October 14 it is business as usual with the general election just a minor interruption in the pursuit of the vested interests and the current plutocracy.
Who seriously can listen to our current politicians and believe anything they say particularly Chipkins and Robertson who never refer to the economic casualties and deprivation in our communities just the economic indicators and Robertson talking purely monetarism and Chipkins referring to the calm of the economy in choppy waters !
The vested interests , corporates , banks and the superprofitmarkets who gouge us for one of the basics of human life …food are looked after and protected under a Labour government ….with a majority !!!
People only tolerate being shit on for so long then take action.
Maximise native forests….We don’t include our natural greenery in our absorption count…How many countries include agriculture emissions in their carbon output…??
There’s nothing that NZ can do to make any difference to this other than make it own citizens poorer
Yeti it’s called self sacrifice which oddly enough makes some people feel good.
The farmers are struggling but some can afford to buy a spa bath at a time when many NZers have to have shorter showers to keep down the power bill.
What a facetious comment – that some farmers can buy a spa bath overlooks the thousands of other New Zealanders who can and do buy a spa bath. Why are you slinging off at farmers alone, covid?