New Zealand academics plead for bold climate change action from Government

WELLINGTON: One hundred and fifty New Zealand academics have penned an open letter to the Government to demand bold action on climate change.

The letter said it was unacceptable that future generations would bear the ‘‘terrifying consequences of climate breakdown’’.

One of its authors, Victoria University Prof James Renwick, said it was frustrating things were not moving faster.

‘‘The message from the science hasn’t really changed for 40 years. If the process had been initiated when the whole IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] process started in the 1980s, I don’t think we’d be having this conversation today.’’

He said the speed of action needed to be similar to mobilisation efforts in war time.

Prof Renwick said the New Zealand Government was heading in the right direction, it just had to move quicker.

‘‘A lot of people and a lot of policymakers don’t appreciate the scale of the damage and the cost and the losses involved if we don’t tackle the problem.

‘‘It’s the policy process and the discussions that go on under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Paris Agreement and so on . . .

‘‘That’s all very well but it’s becoming very clear that we need action as quickly as possible and my sense is the usual policy process just isn’t fast enough.’’

He said there were a number of changes that were in the pipeline that could be pushed forward.

‘‘One hundred percent renewable electricity, incentivising electric vehicles and public transport. Emissions in New Zea land over the last couple of decades have mostly been in transport and industry energy production, so those are areas where we have solutions to hand, but changes could be brought in at a more accelerated rate.

‘‘In agriculture, in a way it’s a harder problem but we could be looking to change the mix of land uses, maybe reducing stocking numbers.’’

The letter referred to the recent IPCC report, which sent a strong message about the seriousness of the situation.

Scientists in the report warn that in 12 years global emissions must be halved to avoid warming of more than 1.5 degrees. — RNZ