New Zealand falls further in global climate action ranking

New Zealand has slipped further towards the bottom of a new international league table on climate action released by European research organisation Germanwatch – the result of this government’s failure to reduce climate emissions, says WWF.

Released during the final week of the Paris global climate summit, the 2016 Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) looks at a range of indicators and ranks developed and newly industrialising countries in a league table.[1]

New Zealand has fallen from 35th last year to a lowly rank of 42nd this year, placing the country towards the bottom of the report’s ‘poor’ category.[2]

This performance undermines PM John Key’s claims at Paris last week that “the Government takes climate change very seriously and [is] committed to ensuring New Zealand does its fair share”.[3]

The top ranking goes to Denmark and the bottom ranking to Saudi Arabia.

“New Zealand’s low ranking comes as no surprise,” said WWF-New Zealand’s Head of Campaigns Peter Hardstaff.

“This government has taken virtually no action to reduce emissions over the past six years. Its main policy response – the Emissions Trading Scheme – has been weakened to the point of being meaningless. As a result New Zealand’s emissions are projected to continue rising while other countries are achieving reductions.”

The assessment only looks at carbon dioxide emissions so New Zealand’s performance on agriculture sector emissions (methane and nitrous oxide) is not counted.

Peter Hardstaff continued, “The world is changing but our government is stuck in the last century. New Zealand needs to start grasping the opportunities that exist to reduce emissions across transport, electricity generation, industry, forestry and agriculture. A clean energy future is 100% possible but we need a government with a plan.”

ENDS

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