Greenpeace says more people will take to the streets to confront climate polluters directly as the Government releases its second Emissions Reductions Plan, which "isn’t worth the paper it’s written on".

Climate Change Minister Simon Watts made headlines in July for signalling that under this plan, New Zealand would miss long-term targets to cut climate pollution in line with science. This has not been resolved in the final version of the plan.

Greenpeace spokesperson Sinéad Deighton-O’Flynn says, "We are already seeing the impacts of climate change, with worsening fires, floods and droughts all around the world. Our home is on fire, and future generations’ lives are at stake. But rather than fighting the blaze, this Government is pouring fuel on the fire."

Greenpeace blames industry lobbying for weakening New Zealand’s climate commitments.

"This Government has consistently allowed big polluters like the agribusiness industry and the fossil fuel industry to write the policy on climate change, and this abject failure of a plan is the result," says Deighton-O’Flynn.

"This is a textbook example of foxes running the henhouse. The Luxon Government is absolving polluting industries of all responsibility and leaving everyday New Zealanders to suffer the consequences of climate inaction. Under Luxon’s leadership, we will all pay the price of worse and more frequent extreme weather events driven by climate pollution.

"The intensive dairy industry, led by Fonterra, is New Zealand’s worst climate polluter. That’s because there are simply too many cows belching out vast quantities of superheating methane gas," says Deighton-O’Flynn.

"But an alternative pathway is possible. We already know what needs to be done to reduce climate pollution here in Aotearoa - we don’t need to wait for silver bullet technofixes, which don’t even exist yet. By reducing the size of the dairy herd, we can dramatically reduce methane emissions. This would pull the climate emergency brake and slow global warming within our lifetimes."

Internationally, New Zealand has faced significant criticism for the Luxon Government’s rollbacks of policies that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In November, New Zealand dropped seven places in the global ranking on climate change released by the Climate Change Performance Index. Key policies that led to this decision included the reversal of the oil and gas ban and the removal of agriculture from the Emissions Trading Scheme.

"There will be consequences for this inaction. We trade on our clean, green reputation. It will become harder for New Zealand to sell milk and other livestock products into markets that are increasingly valuing climate action," says Deighton-O’Flynn.

"There will be impacts domestically too. If the government won’t hold polluters to account, then people will. People are increasingly taking to the streets and the courtrooms, putting their bodies on the line to shut down polluting industries. This will only escalate further unless New Zealand ups its game."

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