Ministers exclude NZ’s greenhouse emissions from ‘environment reporting’

The National Party Government has today revealed that the national environmental report topics for this year will, incredibly, exclude New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions, the Green Party said today.

“The topics, vetted by the Minister for the Environment and the Minister for Statistics, are supposed to give New Zealanders a clear picture of the state of our environment, but by omitting greenhouse gas emissions, it conveniently glosses over the problem of New Zealand’s contribution to climate change,” Green Party Co-leader Dr Russel Norman said.

“New Zealand’s Environmental Reporting Series: 2015 Topics and Provisional Statistics, which was released this morning by MfE and Statistics New Zealand, is intended to investigate the impact of human activities on the environment, so it’s a glaring oversight not taking into account greenhouse gas emissions.

“A report on environmental indicators that omits to mention New Zealand’s greenhouse emissions is ridiculous.

“Ministers are presumably hoping that by not reporting the 20 per cent surge in net greenhouse emissions under this Government, New Zealanders might not notice that we are on a crash course with climate change.

“At present, the Environmental Reporting Bill, which is due to be reported back from select committee, says ministers can choose the topics for the environmental indicators reports. This is Orwellian manipulation of what should be independent reporting, and is why the Greens don’t support the bill.

“The manipulation of topics in this way shows how the Government can shy away from topics that are controversial or politically inconvenient. This is a fundamentally flawed way for a government to operate, and doesn’t represent the interests of New Zealanders,” said Dr Norman.

ENDS

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