Environmental legal warfare coming for Farmers as Greens ramraid Winston over Paris

Bahahahaha…

Climate activists demand government accountability in landmark EU trade complaint

Climate activists are putting their weight behind a claim New Zealand has broken its climate change promises in the free trade agreement with the EU.

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They say the complaint isn’t an attack on New Zealand’s exporters, workers, or communities, but a call for the government to “explain its conduct and to take corrective action.”

It comes as the Trade Minister and the Greens’ trade barbs over the issue.

RNZ

…let’s be clear.

This Government are little more than pimps for their donors.

National have traded in any political philosophical values they once had for corporate talking points aimed at deregulation for their donors.

We see it with the facts track powers and how donors all had their projects approved.

We see it with Tobacco, mining, fishing and property and especially bloody Dairy because the Agricultural sector has the National Party held hostage when it comes to bending the entire economy in their favour.

Greenpeace detail in painful clarity how this government has dismantled every environmental protection available in what they calla war on the environment and in a. small pond like NZ where the Dairy Industry has a grotesque grip on power there is no domestic resistance.

Which is why us getting pinged for this Government’s mutilation of our environment laws by international environmental  activists is so hot…

Environmental Law Initiative Backs Complaint To EU Over New Zealand Climate Rollback – Environmental Law Initiative

The Environmental Law Initiative (ELI) has co-sponsored a complaint alleging that the New Zealand Government has breached its climate commitments under Chapter 19 of the European Union – New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

The complaint has been lodged with the European Commission by Dutch environmental justice organisation Both ENDS. It was submitted through the European Commission’s Single Entry Point, a mechanism for civil society organisations to raise concerns about compliance with sustainable development provisions in European Union (EU) trade agreements. This is the first civil society complaint for climate regression under any EU trade agreement.

The complaint points to a series of decisions by the current Government that have wound back New Zealand’s climate action, most recently through the Climate Change Response (Tort Liability) Amendment Act, which bars the Smith v Fonterraclimate case and any future civil climate claims in tort. This recent law change sits alongside a long list of other climate policy shifts, such as the reversal of the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration and weakening methane reduction targets.

The complaint asks the European Commission to engage with the New Zealand Government under the FTA and seek compliance with the climate commitments. It is directed at the Government’s conduct, not at specific exporters or sectors.

“This is a watershed moment for international accountability on climate change,” said ELI Senior Legal Researcher Eliza Prestidge-Oldfield.

“New Zealand made a commitment to the EU to honour the Paris Agreement. By backsliding on climate, the current Government is ignoring the concrete legal effect of these commitments – undermining our international trade advantages while putting New Zealand’s environment and the global climate further at risk.”

“Both parties agreed to these obligations, and both are expected to uphold them. The Government has brought this challenge on itself through a series of measures that have substantially weakened New Zealand’s climate response.”

Ms Prestidge-Oldfield said the legislation preventing future climate claims in tort was the final straw.

“Parliament has passed a law that shut down a climate case heading to trial, after lobbying by the very companies defending the claim. That isn’t climate policy. It’s shielding polluters from accountability.”

“The International Court of Justice has been clear that developed countries like New Zealand must take the lead in cutting emissions, and trade agreements increasingly reinforce those responsibilities. The trade deal with the EU is clear: the Government must meet its obligations under the Paris Agreement.”

Environmental Law Initiative

…suck it up Farmer Boy, you goin’ git some!

You. Goin’. Git. Some.

We tried and tried and tried to work with Dairy to reduce their emissions, but they threw it all back in our face and sank dark money into Taxpayers’ Union for radicalised and racial propaganda to protect their grip on political power.

This Government has gone as far as cut and pasting Big Polluter interests straight into law to stop Mike Smith from holding them to account for their pollution.

So now outside environmental groups have noticed and are pulling us hip on the Free Trade agreements we have signed.

The industry bray that NZ has better standards than the EU, but that doesn’t defend the rest of the Government’s anti-environment agenda.

Which is why it’s so glorious watching Winston twist in the wind after the Greens hit him about his claims to pull out of the Paris Accords…

Foreign Affairs Minister Fails To Seek Advice On Leaving Paris Agreement

The Green Party has discovered Minister of Foreign Affairs, Winston Peters, has neither sought nor received any advice on what it would mean for New Zealand to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, while his party campaigns on taking the country out of it.

“The majority of current Government coalition parties are ramping up the campaign to remove our country from the world’s main climate change agreement, but the Minister of Foreign Affairs hasn’t asked his officials a single question about what that would cost us,” says Green Party Co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick.

“Peters is officially responsible for our international climate negotiations and managing our trade agreements. He hasn’t asked for advice because he either isn’t serious about the dangerous proposals he’s long argued for, or he doesn’t care about the consequences to our country and economy.”

“Meeting our Paris commitments is written into our Free Trade Agreements with the European Union and the United Kingdom. Farmers and exporters rely on that market access, and they deserve a Foreign Minister who checks what withdrawal would put at risk before he promises it.”

“Let’s be clear: good climate policy reduces the cost of living, supports jobs and builds our country’s resilience. The Luxon Government has managed to both tank the economy and undermine climate commitments.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way. The Greens are working every single day to ensure New Zealanders have affordable lives, healthy nature, and honest politics,” says Swarbrick.

 

…Winston’s convoluted response is that it’s not his responsibility as Foreign Affairs Minister to be aware of Free Trade Deals, that’s the Trade Minister’s reasonability he claims which is a meaningless response because he’s the one who is calling to pull out of the Paris Accords, not the bloody Trade Minister!

Look at what Winston says…

The Green Party co-leader Chloe Swarbrick has sent out a press release showing both her blistering ignorance and the reason why the Greens have never been in Cabinet in their fifty-four years of existence.

Swarbrick has accused me of not seeking or receiving any advice on what it would mean for New Zealand to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.

She said “Peters is officially responsible for our international climate negotiations and managing our trade agreements.” This is wrong.

It is the Minister for Climate Change and Minister for Trade who are responsible for those two things.

 

…BUT WINSTON IS THE ONE MAKING THE THREAT, not Todd McClay!

He’s claiming that it is technically the job of the Trade Minister to look at what the impacts of pulling out of a free trade agreement, sure, fine, whatever Boomer, but Todd isn’t calling to do that, WINSTON is calling to do that.

Winston has been caught out by the Greens and like a Karen is purposely focusing on some technical point to hide behind.

You can’t keep pimping for the big polluters and not have a reckoning on a burning planet.

The strongest El Niño in 1000 years powered on climate change is coming. National, ACT and NZF voters are about to have their climate denial, drowned and burnt from the earth.

Let’s see how the Right claim climate change is a socialist hoax this Summer.

 

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