Spurred by further sobering scientific reports and compelling economic warnings, and by ongoing silence from Cabinet, the Nelson Tasman Climate Forum is vigorously continuing its campaign to galvanise appropriate responses from Government.

Halfway through what is known as the “critical decade” for climate action, the Forum is more resolved than ever, and even dares to believe New Zealand could be a role model on climate of the sort that the world desperately needs.

At The.Press./government-wilfully-blind-climate-change-specialists-say, Stuff has added important momentum to the discussion, but the Forum knows the journey to properly address such major issues is long and is far from over.

Major insurers like giant Allianz Group are sounding stark alarms about the entire future of a market economy. In a compelling article, Theguardian.com reported Allianz director Günther Thallinger on market impacts if the world fails to slash its emissions.

“The economic value of entire regions…will begin to vanish from financial ledgers. Markets will reprice, rapidly and brutally. This is what a climate-driven market failure looks like.” And

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“That means no more mortgages, no new real estate development, no long-term investment, no financial stability. The financial sector as we know it ceases to function. And with it, capitalism as we know it ceases to be viable.”

The forum has written yet again to try to engage the Prime Minister and Minister Watts in these critical issues, but to no avail. For more about the history and documentation of the campaign so far, refer to the Resilienz website here: https://www.resilienz.co.nz/willful-blindness

In this dire context, it is calling on Government to

• Display the visionary leadership that is crucial to establishing and sustaining responses that are truly commensurate with such an existential threat.
• Give top priority to gaining deep understanding of the situation underpinning such stark warnings and to acting on that with decisiveness and utmost resolve.
• Take urgent steps to keep the New Zealand public and all sectors of the economy up to speed on what we must expect to deal with on climate change. Commit to and develop model climate-related strategies that set an example to the world, and make New Zealanders proud to be digging deep and exercising their highest possible ambition in such a globally critical arena.
• Take a truly wide-boundary view of the long-term economics of climate change.

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