Step Up Or Lose
Every New Zealander has to become a Climate Change advocate suggests Michael Barnett, CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber. We need to share the aspirations on how in the future we move people and freight, heat our homes, recycle, construct buildings, plant forests, and produce meat and dairy.
Commenting on the Climate Commission blueprint on how to achieve transformational and lasting change across society and the economy Barnett said the advice “defines a way forward which we have no choice but to follow as a good global citizen”.
We shouldn’t focus on electric cars as a panacea when there are issues on price and ethical concerns about manufacture practices and battery disposal or demand reduction in herd numbers when our farming sector is already delivering better productivity on lower herd numbers.
We need to act and enable innovation to deliver change that delivers economic, social and environmental balance.
We need to be “ambitious pragmatists”, accelerating those things we do better and more efficiently than other countries – those things that have sustained our economy through lockdowns and set us up for recovery.
Business has shown it can be agile and innovative, we have adopted new behaviours and can adopt the objectives in this blueprint and create new sectors, technology, jobs and skills.