The National Government is living in la-la land if it thinks it can achieve New Zealand’s climate goals with its current lack of policies to tackle the problem.
“National won’t accept that they’re off track and accept independent advice from the Climate Commission on what needs to happen to meet our climate targets,” said Labour climate spokesperson Megan Woods.
According to the Climate Commission’s Monitoring Report: Emissions Reduction July 2024, “there are significant risks to meeting the second and third budgets”, pointing to “an urgent need to strengthen policies and strategies to put Aotearoa New Zealand on track to meet future emissions budgets and the 2050 target, including the 2030 biogenic methane component of the target”.
“The Government is offering almost no policy to reduce pollution from livestock and is failing to maintain the electric vehicle uptake rates achieved under Labour,” said Megan Woods.
“They don’t care about ensuring we have a stable climate for future generations, they only care about the bottom line and tinkering around the edges. We need bold action to transform our economy and ensure people, homes and livelihoods are secure in the future.
“Instead we have their dismal Emissions Reductions Plan, which undoes climate initiatives that have had a real impact towards meeting our targets.
“National slashed $3 billion of important climate-related work from the Budget, but happily handed over $2.9 billion in tax cuts to landlords,” said Megan Woods.
This is both your fault.
Both National and Labour signed NZ up to much steeper targets than they ever expected New Zealand would be able to meet inside this country.
New Zealand has known it needed to buy a substantial number of offshore offsets since 2015.
Key’s Cabinet was advised the country could expect to pay around $3.7 billion for overseas offsets by 2030, based on a price of $50 a tonne.
Back then, Cabinet originally envisioned meeting 70 percent of the 2030 target using offsets from overseas and just 30 percent domestically.
Under Jacinda (in 2020) the Labour-led government came under pressure to increase Key’s 2030 target – again, knowing that the new target would not be possible to meet domestically.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/523539/significant-risk-delaying-climate-deals-could-cost-five-times-more-simon-watts-told
Idiots.
Via overcommitting our ability on the international stage, you have both cost us a fortune.
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