We are now at a crucial time of Climate Change history, since Covid 19 pandemic diverted our Governments from the beginning of the movement of marching together for saving our climate, and now time is upon us to continue our fight to save our planet earth. http://community.scoop.co.nz/2020/07/launch-of-the-vote-climate-2020-campaign/

Last week BBC news released a new report from “The World Meteorological Organisation” (WMO) who say there's a growing chance that global temperatures will break the 1.5C threshold over the next five years, compared to pre-industrial levels.

See full article (Below) released two days ago on the BBC news.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53342806

The World Meteorological Organisation says there's a growing chance that global temperatures will break the 1.5C threshold over the next five years, compared to pre-industrial levels.

It says there's a 20% possibility the critical mark will be broken in any one year before 2024.

But the assessment says there's a 70% chance it will be broken in one or more months in those five years.

Scientists say that keeping below 1.5C will avoid the worst climate impacts.

The target was agreed by world leaders in the 2015 Paris climate accord accord.

They committed to pursue efforts to try to keep the world from warming by more than 1.5C this century.

This new assessment, carried out by the UK's Met Office for the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), says there's a growing chance that this level will be breached.

Researchers say that the Earth's average annual temperature is already more than 1C higher than it was in the 1850s - and will probably stay around this level over the next five years.

Some parts of the world will feel this rising heat more than others, with the scientists saying that the Arctic will probably warm by twice the global average this year.

They also predict that over the coming five years there will be more storms over western Europe thanks to rising sea levels.

"The WMO has repeatedly stressed that the industrial and economic slowdown from Covid-19 is not a substitute for sustained and co-ordinated climate action," said Prof Petteri Taalas, the WMO's secretary general.

"Due to the very long lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere, the impact of the drop in emissions this year is not expected to lead to a reduction of CO2 atmospheric concentrations which are driving global temperature increases.

"Whilst Covid-19 has caused a severe international health and economic crisis, failure to tackle climate change may threaten human well-being, ecosystems and economies for centuries. Governments should use the opportunity to embrace climate action as part of recovery programmes and ensure that we grow back better," he said.

If the 1.5C threshold is broken in one of the coming years, the experts stress it won't mean the targets are invalid.

However it will, once again, underline the urgency of significant emissions cuts to prevent a long-term move to this more dangerous, warmer world.

Edited;

CEAC response; to Government ;

We must not place climate change in the “to hard to do basket”, as now we need to make this a major election issue since the ‘National Party Climate policy is all about continued road building for more trucks‘ and this is a retrograde abysmal step backwards and is the wrong way to lower our carbon emissions.

CEAC request to Government to make rail a major change in our freight transport system as last week another organisation in NZ (Energy and Environment) warned government to ‘increase electrification of our transport’ as the emissions target Government has set is falling behind now. First published in Energy and Environment on June 2, 2020. “The latest data on the Government’s attempts to reduce the emissions of its transport fleet show no discernible progress.”

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2007/S00066/snail-like-progress-on-government-vehicle-emissions-targets.htm

Secondly; we request that Government direct our publicly owned ‘Kiwi Rail’ open up the whole NZ rail system as Australia has, beginning with Gisborne rail for ‘open access’ so other rail providers can do what Kiwi Rail refuses to do for the benefit of the public taxpayer, and review Kiwi Rail’s lax policy on Climate change again as we encourage rail to switch to increasing electrification of our rail fleet when purchasing locomotives in future as Kiwi Rail current logic buying diesel engines is against Government’s own climate change policy to “move to a low-emissions future” for future generations to benefit from coupled together with the health and well-being of our planet and our citizens.

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