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10-20% Pure New Zealand
"March on Parliament"

Today hundreds of Wellington Students will be taking to the streets in a climate march leaving Kelburn Park at 12pm and arriving at Parliament at 1.15pm. The march is asking the New Zealand Government to commit to an emissions reduction target of 30-40% for the year 2020. The march is organised and supported by the 10 – 20% Pure New Zealand collective made up of a number of environmental and social groups at Victoria University.

The marches delivered a giant postcard which read “10-20% Pure New Zealand”and which was addressed to the Prime Minister John key. The postcard was accepted by Keith Locke from the Green Party.

Spokes person for the collective Ruby Haazen said that " we are marching because we must ensure that the decisions made by our leaders today will ensure us a healthy and sustainable future for tomorrow, New Zealand needs to take part in mitigating runaway climate change and commit to a 40% emission target that is in line with the science".

The New Zealand 100% brand is crucial for New Zealand’s tourism and trade. This brand is under threat if we cannot demonstrate a genuine commitment to sustainability by taking action to prevent runaway climate change. Our economic strength and sustainability do not need to be at odds with each other but should reinforce each other. We have the solutions and if we act now we can reach a 40% emission target by 2020 at low cost.

“We are delivering an alternative brand of 10-20% Pure, rather than the 100% Pure, on our postcard to our Minister for Climate change Issues and the Minister for Tourism because it is unacceptable for New Zealand to lag behind Scotland, Norway, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, the rest of the European Union in terms of our action on climate change” said James Barber from the collective.

“Scientists tell us we are already seeing the effect of climate change in retreating summer ice in the Arctic and we can expect more extreme weather events. If we look at the crippling economic effect of a prolonged drought on New Zealand farmers, common sense tells us the longer we leave the problem the higher the cost, said Haazen.

This march is in support of the 350 global day of action taking place on October the 24th.

We as students are ready to support a government which takes serious action to mitigate runaway climate change and commits to a 40% emission target.

This march is supported by the following organisations: 350 Aotearoa, Stand up and Greenpeace

ENDS

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