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Green label muddied by Kyoto rejection

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Green label muddied by Kyoto rejection

3News NZ

Labour says the move is damaging to New Zealand's "100% Pure" brand (file)

Labour says the move is damaging to New Zealand's "100% Pure" brand (file)

The Government's decision not to commit to the second stage of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change is disappointing and leaves New Zealand's reputation in tatters, an environmental lobby group says.

Climate Change Minister Tim Groser said yesterday the Government had decided it would not sign up for the second commitment period of Kyoto, and instead opt for the United Nation's Convention Framework, following the lead of major economies such as the United States, Japan, China, India, Canada, Brazil and Russia.

Mr Groser said New Zealand would remain full members of the Kyoto Protocol but would make its climate change commitments under the convention.

WWF New Zealand spokesman Peter Hardstaff said they were disappointed the Government was not prepared to commit to legally binding action on climate change.

"Refusing sign up to the second phase of Kyoto leaves New Zealand's claims to be clean and green in tatters," Mr Hardstaff said.

"The Government's approach to climate policy is effectively telling the world we have no intention of reducing our emissions."

The Government's decision means New Zealand is breaking ranks with Australia, which will ratify the next protocol phase after the current agreement expires at the end of this year.

Labour's climate change spokeswoman Moana Mackey said to pull out of Kyoto the same day that Australia committed was humiliating, and showed the Government was not taking climate change seriously.

"There is no longer an effective tool for limiting our gross carbon emissions, which is a blow to our carbon forestry sector and damaging to the important 100% Pure brand."

NZN

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Comments

12/11/2012 12:36:21 p.m.

S wrote:

The bigger Countries need to commit to the Protocol first but NZ needs to clean up waterways urgently etc and restore its Green image.

11/11/2012 1:57:21 p.m.

cyril wrote:

@ Mike. Looks like you touched a nerve with Kathy. Like most greens who live in the totally artificial enviroment of the city she has a narrow perspective and is blinded by there dogma. She is probably on a benifit or got a secure goverment job so is imune to these measures. Well until they filter down the food chain but that may take years. Another thing these people dont take into account is the amount of pollution created by the natual world has to be subtracted from the man made stuff. What effect does a million seals crapping on the rocks have compared to a couple hundred thousand cows. Not a lot Id think. On top of that shell be the first to moan when her milk goes up 50c ltr to pay the carbon tax.

11/11/2012 10:15:20 a.m.

Kathy wrote:

Absolute rubbish Mike.

11/11/2012 7:09:39 a.m.

Mike wrote:

@Kathy Are you one of those 'Rich Farmers', 'Revenue=Profit'?

2009 farm incomes averaged around $1500 tax paid. Why? Well for all their richness, their incomes for their families to live off were around single unemployment benefit levels - but they worked for that income, and had a family to support. If looking in NZ for those below the poverty line there is no group that has been more consistently below the poverty line than farmers - hence peple like Kathy want to tax them into extinction because they work for a low wage. If we had unions in farming act like in the EU, would see EU style 'Paris' grinding to a halt and demands for govt subsidies to around 5x the price farmers currently get paid. Never forget farmers are workers too.

Do as I said, test any waterway in NZ, take the water quality as it flows past farms, take the water quality as flows past a town/city. The worst water degredation is from people, not farm animals. Take the dumping of garbage from towns/cities. Farmers would never be allowed to dump that much on the enviroment, yet for towns/cities its allowable. Any way you look, be it air qaulity, dumping, water quality - people are the worst polluters in NZ per sq km because people pollute. We need to tackle the worst polluters - people. Set some rate per sq km and enforce it on EVERYONE. If you care for the enviroment then you must be disgusted by the filth from our population, which is many times worse than the bio-waste from our farms.

10/11/2012 6:03:17 p.m.

cyril wrote:

The Kyoto protokol is a joke, The targets havnt been met so there is no point in signing up for more. The Australian goverment are idiots that are destroying there country and are unlikely to survive the next election. The enviromental lobby are out to turn New Zealand into a primative third world subsistance farming or/and hunter gatherer society even though it will destroy the New Zealand enviroment on a far worse scale then our presant society. You cant feed 4.5 mil people scrabbling in the dirt in a country this small. even the firewood required to warm ourselves and cook our food would strip this country of firewood in just a few years. The koyoto thing would only work if the proven technology existed and people just needed a push to make them adopt it, but what is there is experimental at best, expensive and inefficent like wind farms that the greens are fixated on even though there footprint to power produced is as bad or worse than hydro not to mention the visual and sound pollution. People may not know that an extremily efficient wind farm only runs at 25% capacity so to produce the power they like to claim for one turbine in reality requires 5 to produce the rated power long term. The enviromental lobby thinks that if we fine those who have the ability to do the R+D solutions will magically appear but are in fact taking research dollars away to pay a totally ineffective tax.

10/11/2012 5:19:27 p.m.

Kathy wrote:

National doesnt believe in harsher penalties for polluters at all. 400 million dollars earmarked for use from asset sales money goes directly to farmers to improve waterways that they themselves have stuffed. 400 Million dollars of ordinary tax payer funds. Thats not penalising polluters at all really is it, its rewarding them for abysmal behaviour and ordinary tax payers are the ones paying for the bad behaviour of dairy farmers in particular who are some of the most well off farmers we have, with huge yearly dividend payouts from fonterra Farmers should be made to clean up their own messes not the New Zealand tax payer.

10/11/2012 1:27:39 p.m.

Jim Seaview wrote:

What is wrong with following the same patterns as the United States, Japan, China, India, Canada, Brazil and Russia? If these huge powerful countries are not committed to the Kyoto protocol on climate change then it makes good practical sense for NZ to just follow their lead. We do not want to be world leaders as the Greens and Labour would like us to be!! Thank you Climate Change Minister Tim Groser for taking this cautious copycat approach. I find @MIKE comments interesting, Thanks.

10/11/2012 12:31:55 p.m.

Mike wrote:

We should also make councils comply to the same standards as businesses and farms.

Currently if we took say 1 km of river front and the pollution a farm is allowed, and the pollution that actually happens along 1 km of river front past a town/city there is no comparison. The worst water pollution in NZ is people, and the councils police their own and do the worst job protecting the enviroment in NZ.

Over time we will see the standards get tougher, but we need everyone to comply to the same standard, including the worst polluters - councils.

10/11/2012 11:34:53 a.m.

annikki wrote:

Who can be surprised! I didn't expect anything else from this government. But every nation gets the leaders it deserves. In NZ we have been living too long the lie by keeping up the myth of a green image. NZ is only green-ish because its small population. It would be wracked by now big deal if we had a proportionally compatible density like European countries.

10/11/2012 10:26:22 a.m.

katrina wrote:

I agree Mike. Did anything actually improve under Kyoto? I think as a country we should just make legislative changes and harsher penalties for polluters. Put more people on the ground to monitor and carry through with enforcing companies to clean up their act.