Source: Greenpeace Aotearoa
A UN report has revealed that the world is set to exceed 1.5 degrees of global temperature increase, as Greenpeace condemns the New Zealand Government for pouring fuel on the escalating climate crisis.
The report finds that even under the most optimistic scenario, global temperatures are expected to peak at around 1.8°C above pre-industrial levels before declining. Other scenarios see temperatures rising even further.
Greenpeace spokesperson Gen Toop says the findings make the Coalition Government’s track record on climate policy utterly indefensible.
“This report shows that all governments must act immediately to limit the time earth spends above 1.5°C and bring warming back below that level as quickly as possible.”
“At precisely the moment governments should be slamming the brakes on fossil fuels and intensive livestock farming, the Coalition Government has put its foot on the accelerator and is driving us off a cliff.”
“It has spent its time in power tearing apart climate protections, and expanding the very industries driving the crisis.”
The report warns that above 1.5°C, climate impacts will intensify with every additional fraction of a degree and every year spent above the threshold. These include increasingly severe extreme weather, ecosystem loss, rising seas threatening Small Island Developing States and low-lying coastal cities, alongside escalating damage to human health, food and water security, infrastructure and economies.
“People are already paying for the climate crisis with their lives,” says Toop.
“We have just seen the devastating consequences of a warming world in Nepal and China following last week’s catastrophic glacial flood.
“Every fraction of a degree matters. Every tonne of coal, oil and gas kept in the ground matters. Every industrial livestock farm conversion prevented matters.
“And against this latest scientific backdrop, every decision this Government has made to increase climate pollution becomes even more indefensible.”
Since taking office, the Coalition Government has reversed the ban on new offshore oil and gas exploration, enabled a swathe of new dairy conversions in Canterbury, weakened New Zealand’s climate targets, pursued a new LNG import terminal and committed hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies for the fossil fuel industry.
Greenpeace says these are not isolated decisions, but a clear pattern of the Government taking New Zealand backwards on climate action.