The Green Party is welcoming the important decision last night by the UN Vienna meeting on climate change to endorse an ambitious greenhouse emission reduction target. But the Greens are asking why the Labour-led Government opposed the ambitious target and hence why is it trying to undermine international efforts to take strong action on climate change.
"New Zealanders will be surprised and saddened to learn that our country has joined the international climate change pariahs after failed attempts by the New Zealand Labour-led Government to prevent the adoption of a steep emission reduction target at the Vienna climate change meeting," says Green Co-Leader Russel Norman.
"It seems hard to believe that New Zealand would be singled out at the UN climate change talks as one of the leading opponents of serious emission cuts, but we are ashamed to say it is true.
"The New Zealand Labour-led Government lined up in opposition to the target of a 25-40% cut in greenhouse emissions by 2020 for industrialised countries, and now New Zealand has been singled out by the global non-government Climate Action Network as one of the handful of countries trying to stop progress.
"Solutions to avoid catastrophic human-induced climate change must be negotiated at an international level, and New Zealand could be a part of that solution. Instead, the actions of the Labour-led Government are making us part of the problem.
"Consumers of our agricultural exports and tourists to New Zealand are already looking long and hard at our climate change record. How will our image as clean and green, on which our economy is built, survive the efforts by our UN negotiators to stop serious reductions in global greenhouse emissions.
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