Greenpeace Aotearoa has welcomed Opportunity’s new
climate policy, pointing to its promise to cut agricultural
methane as a vital step toward tackling New Zealand’s
biggest source of pollution.
Opportunity pledges to
align methane targets with the independent scientific advice
of the Climate Change Commission, reversing controversial
rollbacks on agribusiness emissions.
Greenpeace
spokesperson Rhiannon Mackie says cutting methane is the
fastest way to slow down climate disruption, calling it our
emergency brake as the world is on track to blow past the
1.5 degree safe threshold.
“Opportunity is on the
right track by promising to tackle the outsized climate
pollution from New Zealand’s biggest emitter: the
agricultural sector.”
“Right now, New Zealand is
scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to climate
action. This Government has refused to take action to reduce
emissions from the agricultural industry, and at their
request, has weakened our methane targets in line with the
unscientific principle of No Additional
Warming.”
“This policy from Opportunity is a step in
the right direction, and it’s needed. Methane acts like a
super-heating blanket over the planet, but cutting methane
emissions now has the power to bring down global heating
within our lifetimes.”
“It is the emergency brake that
offers a lifeline for future generations.”
However,
Mackie warns the party to avoid the traps that derailed past
attempts to regulate dairy and intensive
farming.
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“Good intentions aren’t enough when
you’re dealing with agribusiness lobbyists. The last
government tried to work in partnership with the industry
through He Waka Eke Noa, trusting them to help design a
solution. The industry simply dragged its feet until it
could see a government change on the horizon – and then
walked away completely.
“It’s been more than 20
years since Helen Clark first tried to introduce a price on
agribusiness emissions. Yet New Zealand’s biggest
polluters still pay nothing for their greenhouse
gases.”
The policy package released today outlined
Opportunity’s entire climate action policy, and Greenpeace
says it is concerned about a proposed billion dollar
transition fund for industry users of coal and gas, as well
as plans to establish a new methane pricing
model.
Instead of allowing more years of delay by
designing a new trade system for farming emissions,
Greenpeace is urging Opportunity to stick to the tool we
already have: bringing agriculture directly into the
existing Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
“We are
seeing the consequences of an unstable climate play out in
real time with extreme heatwaves causing death and failed
harvests, alongside deadly floods,” says
Mackie.
“Opportunity has shown the courage to name the
problem. It remains to be seen whether this crop of
candidates from outside Parliament have the political grit
to stand up to lobbyists, and hold the most powerful
polluters in the country accountable for their role in the
climate
crisis.”
