Now, that was what came from that ACT Party announcement that I told you would be coming today that you needed to keep an eye out for.
ACT says Paris isn't working for New Zealand and it says we should push for the agreement to be reformed - and if it isn't reformed, then we should pull out of it.
It isn't working, ACT says, because it's pushing up our food prices and it's pushing up our power prices and it's forcing the farmers off the land to make way for trees.
And you can add to that list something that we've seen a lot of this winter and last winter - it is shutting down industry because of those high power prices.
Now, there will be a lot of people who hear this from ACT and write it off as nutty climate change denier stuff. It is not.
Think about the Paris Agreement critically, right? Set aside, you know, your vibes, whether you want to help the climate, set all of that stuff aside.
Just think about this critically as to whether it works or not.
And you can see it doesn't work. I mean, I stand to be corrected, but I cannot see any country that is meeting the targets.
We will not meet the targets. The US, one of the world's biggest polluters, has pulled out. China, the world's biggest polluter, is still building coal-powered plants.
I mean, we are fretting about the one coal-powered plant that we've got and they're building heaps of them.
India, another one of the biggest polluters, is also doing the same with coal-powered plants.
In which case, why would a country responsible for 0.17 percent of the world's emissions - or something like that - continue to persist with the Paris Agreement?
Because we're not saving the planet, we're just making Kiwis poorer.
And power is so expensive that we now have people who cannot turn on the heater every time Huntley burns expensive coal.
Coal, by the way, which is not expensive, but which we have decided to artificially make expensive in order to save the planet.
Now, the Nats have shot this down already and say it's not happening.
That's smart politics for them, because they've got to hold on to the swing voters who might react badly, you know, without thinking things through to anything that looks like climate change denial.
The Nats might want to be careful about what they rule in or out hard before the election, because they might need flexibility afterwards, given both of their coalition partners want out of Paris.
ACT officially wants out unless things change, New Zealand First keeps hinting at it.
And if National is honest with itself, they should want to get out of it too, because Paris is making us poorer, but not doing anything to save the planet.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show HERE - where this article was sourced.
7 comments:
Walking away from it is not a hard decision. Just bin it.
Ditch the accord now.
If the tree huggers cannot handle burning NZ coal, burn the tree huggers-they have a calorific value.
Japan is also building CLEAN burning Coal fired power plants within city boundaries with huge low emission mandatory or close down requirements . The US is now on a coal use trajectory again under the 47th President. NZ imports from Indonesia with a coal briquette factory sitting idle at Gore with only security as staff .
ACT are reading the room strategically , Luxon blunders on and Willis struggles behind . We are actually meant to be protecting our food growing soils from any Paris commitment.
In total agreement: we must ditch the Paris Accord. Our biggest problem is Luxon who can't see the wood for the trees. He believes in manmade climate change as though it is a religion. He cannot prove it but he has undeniable faith that it exists. It is like a religion because it cannot not be proven, and therefore to believe is to have faith.
The science points to Luxon being wrong in this, his belief yet he cannot bring himslef to accept that he is wrong and the scientists are right. It is a sort of single source of truth. As such he need sto step down or be replaced as he is leading NZ to disaster for misplaced faith and egotistical practices.
Just to illustrate how much CO2 New Zealand actually emits:-
What are the facts regarding New Zealand’s contribution to human caused CO2 emissions?
Using figures from the United Nations IPCC:-
• Global CO2 levels are currently 400 ppm (parts per million)
• Each year, an extra 2 ppm is generated by human activity.
• NZ contributes 0.17% of that 2 ppm each year.
What do these numbers actually mean?
Just how big is New Zealand’s contribution?
Okay – let’s illustrate just how much this is:
Picture a very large bathtub, full of water.
The bathtub contains 500 liters (500,000 mils) of water.
This represents the total global atmosphere. In this example:-
• Current CO2 levels, 400ppm is 200 mils.(= Global CO2)
• Human activity per year (2 ppm) is 1.0 mil
• New Zealand contribution (0.17%) per year is 0.0017 mils per year
• This is 1/30 of one drop in 500 liters (500,000 mils) per year.
This is ONE drop in the BATHTUB every 30 YEARS.
At this rate it would take 30 YEARS for NZ’s contribution to add just ONE drop to the FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND mils in bathtub which represents the total global atmosphere.
It would take 600 years for NZ’s CO2 to increase global CO2 from 400 ppm to 401 ppm.
Since when has this type of clear, mathematically sound logic permeated the political brain? As I have said a couple of times, a similar bathtub analogy applies to our economy as putting the plug in and stopping the gravy train would have a far more beneficial effect than trying to grow the economy - particularly when the limits to growth are cutting in so hard. Maybe I should use a boat analogy where stopping any leaks might prevent a sinking?
Great explanation Doug.
Paris is nothing but an agreement to extract money and redistribute.
Too many have been conned.
Pull out now.
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