The latest UNEP Emissions Gap Report has warned that if countries do not commit to rapid action to cut rising climate pollution emissions, the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C will be gone within a few years, but Greenpeace says despite the Luxon Government’s failure so far, there is hope.

Greenpeace Aotearoa executive director Dr Russel Norman says, "Here we have yet another stark warning that if we are to leave our children a habitable planet, emissions have to come down rapidly and a reminder that in this global crisis, every country must play its part.

"Yet here in New Zealand, we have a government of climate extremists hell-bent on doing the exact opposite. Just yesterday, we saw offshore wind energy companies pull out of New Zealand because this government is fast-tracking a seabed mining project that would block offshore wind turbines.

"Christopher Luxon has stated that he wants to restart oil and gas exploration, mine for coal, and build a new fossil gas import terminal. As today’s UN report confirms, these actions are entirely at odds with a liveable climate - they are the actions of a climate extremist.

"Luxon’s awkward presence at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa today is not only tainted by the sinking of the Manawanaui, it is tainted by his climate extremism, which is not popular in the Pacific.

"Even his own government ministry said New Zealand doesn’t need any new fossil gas," says Dr Norman.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) recently released its updated report on Electricity Demand and Generation Scenarios looking out to 2050, which confirmed that there is no need for new fossil fuels to ‘keep the lights on’ in Aotearoa. Wind and solar are the cheapest sources of new electricity generation and sufficient for the transition.

"For 15 years, the UNEP has been sounding the alarm on the great chasm between political will for climate action and the worsening emissions trajectory fuelling rising temperatures. These reports form a shameful litany of failure by successive governments to tackle the climate crisis with the urgency it demands," says Dr Norman.

"New Zealand’s biggest polluter is the dairy industry’s super-heating methane emissions, and yet no Government has been able to find the backbone to stand up to Fonterra and regulate against the drivers of their emissions: synthetic nitrogen fertiliser, imported palm kernel and too many cows."

The Emissions Gap Report 2024 found that it remains technically possible to get on a 1.5°C pathway, with solar, wind and forests "holding real promise for sweeping and fast emissions cuts", alongside energy demand reductions. However, a failure to increase ambition in countries’ 2035 climate action plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), would put the world at risk for a temperature increase of 2.6-3.1°C by the end of this century.

The UNEP also called on countries to explain how their 2035 NDCs contribute to tripling renewable capacity deployment and doubling annual energy efficiency rates by 2030, agreed at COP28 last year, and to transitioning away from fossil fuels.

© Scoop Media