NZ Institute left behind in climate debate: Greens

The NZ Institute is sounding like a carbon addict in denial, Green Party Co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons says.

The Institute recommends that New Zealand should do as little as possible to reduce carbon emissions for as long as we can get away with it, and plan to follow other nations only if they take action against us.

“Their tone is like a patient with a serious addiction. Even though the doctor has given an urgent warning that they need to make immediate and substantial changes to save their health, the Institute - just like a patient with an addiction - puts forward all the usual arguments for doing nothing, or at least not yet, ignoring all the risks, even though the expert evidence has been made clear.

“We have been warned, not least by scientists from the Nobel prize winning Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change, that the world has around 10 years to turn around our rapidly growing emissions. The Institute recommends that we can delay action as long as we like.”

The scientific consensus is that in order to limit global warming to two degrees the world needs to reduce emissions by 60 percent by 2050. This means the largest polluters in the OECD need to reduce by 80-90 percent. Yet the Institute proposes cutting back New Zealand’s emissions by only 30 percent by 2050.

“The report is curiously insubstantial, lacking in numbers, rigorous analysis or appreciation of physical reality.

“On one hand, it talks of ‘building New Zealand’s environmental brand to be a world leader’, and on the other hand recommends that we lag behind other countries on the most serious environmental issue of our time.

“The debate has well and truly moved on from whether we should act. New Zealanders are now investigating how we can act. The Institute has revealed itself to be an outdated commentator who cannot, by its own lack of relevancy, make a useful contribution to the climate debate.”