New Zealand Celsias

Today and tomorrow, as the South shivers under snow, New Zealand will co-host, with South Africa and Mexico, an informal negotiating meeting focused on the politics and technicalities of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and monitoring, reporting and verifying emissions reductions. Straight after the meeting, climate negotiators from several countries, including New Zealand will fly to Apia, Samoa, for a meeting of the ‘Cartagena Dialogue’ – a group of countries claiming to support progressive action on climate change.Peter Hardstaff from WWF has said it is hypocrisy for the the NZ Government to be pretending to be progressive on this issue 

“It is hypocrisy for New Zealand to present itself as an honest broker in these talks, host negotiating meetings and label itself as a country supporting ‘progressive action’ on climate change when it is apparently refusing to make good on promises made at last year’s climate summit. WWF-New Zealand calls on the government to publicly commit to creating a Low Carbon Development Plan.”

On 7 July, an open letter from a range of business, academic and non-governmental signatories was sent to Prime Minister John Key expressing concern that New Zealand apparently has no intention of creating a Low Carbon Development Plan, despite agreeing to do this at the Cancun climate summit in December 2010 The group  includes business leaders Lloyd Morrison and Sir Stephen Tindall, both part of the Pure Advantage initiative launched last week.Although New Zealand had a target of reducing emissions by 50% from 1990 levels in 2050, and had introduced the Emissions Trading Scheme, the group said having a 40-year target did not deliver reductions, and the ETS would not on its own reduce emissions sufficiently.

"It will make New Zealand look like a laggard in the international talks and make the job of the New Zealand delegation at the UNFCCC harder.". A full response to this letter has not yet been received.

Peter Hardstaff said: “Creating a Low Carbon Development Plan is an important step not only because it delivers on a promise and demonstrates we are serious about reducing pollution, but also because a considered and planned transition to a low carbon economy will be much better for New Zealanders and New Zealand businesses than the current lack of vision and misplaced emphasis on polluting fossil fuel extraction.”

Tim Groser has responded that the statement is "vacuous"

He said the current Government has introduced transport, industry and energy into a carbon price system."It has also retrofitted tens of thousands of homes and is well on the way to a target of 200,000 homes," he said."The Government has also increased the proportion of renewable energy to 74% and has 1,000 megawatts of renewable energy consented, the minister said."The cutting down of New Zealand forests has ended. I think that's a ridiculous charge."

And he said New Zealand is on track to meet its Kyoto commitment."The long term target remains there, but I mean we're talking about decades. This is a long-term process and New Zealand's absolutely doing its bit."Groser said that the Auckland meetings were an attempt to broaden participation beyond the original Kyoto counties ""We can't do another Kyoto just in isolation because it involves now only some 16% of global emissions.You can't be serious and say you've got a global deal if you keep 84% of emissions, including the United States and China who are responsible collectively for some 40%, out of the deal. So we're trying to build a structure that can get more comprehensive engagement."

Groser said the approach used in Copenhagen talks was to try and "shout a deal through", but people have learnt this doesn't work and they have to negotiate a deal.