Govt rejects climate advice less than a week after deadly floods in Asia kill over 1,400 – Greenpeace

The Government has today announced it is rejecting all of the Climate Change Commission’s emissions target recommendations and will not include emissions from international shipping and aviation in New Zealand’s targets.

Greenpeace has been left speechless by the decision.

“There are no words to describe just how morally bankrupt this decision is,” says Greenpeace campaigner Gen Toop.

“Deadly climate fuelled flooding in Asia last week killed more than 1400 people with hundreds still missing. Instead of stepping up in this moment of global crisis, the Government’s response is to toss out every recommendation from its own climate experts.”

“This Government is acting like climate deniers. Rejecting science, reviving and subsidising fossil fuels and weakening the methane target – every move this Government makes pushes us deeper into the climate crisis.”

This announcement is the latest step in what Greenpeace describes as a systematic dismantling of decades of climate action, which it has documented in an extensive timeline beginning just days after the Luxon Government took office.

“It is clear that the Government has chosen to side with fossil fuel and agribusiness corporations over human life and the survival of nature. History will not be kind to leaders who had every warning, every piece of evidence, and still chose to pour petrol on the fire,” says Toop.

Carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere jumped by the highest amount on record last year, and the Climate Change Commission has warned that the effects of climate change are hitting New Zealand sooner and more severely than expected.