THE ANGLICAN Archbishops of New Zealand have welcomed their government’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but have cautioned that the proposed level of cuts may not be enough to head off global warming.On August 11 Archbishops David Moxon and Brown Turei wrote to Prime Minister John Key, pictured, applauding their government’s decision to cut emissions “to between 10 and 20 per cent below what they were in 1990” by 2020.
New Zealand had an “enviable” and “valuable” reputation of being “being clean and green, and your actions will help safeguard this good image,” the archbishops said.
The proposed cuts, however, did not go far enough, as the “10 to 20 per cent band is well short of the 40 per cent reduction” needed to limit global warming to 2 degrees. The 2 degrees mark, they said, was “a threshold, which marks the difference between controllable climate change, and runaway change that would spiral out of control.”
They urged the government to set the “highest possible target for greenhouse gas emission reductions: in all sorts of ways, doing too little now will cost a great deal more in the long run.”
The “implications of runaway climate change for our brothers and sisters in the Pacific Islands alone are obvious,” they said, warning of rising sea levels and massive dislocation of island and coastal populations that would occur if global warming were not stopped.
Speaking to reporters in Wellington, the minister for climate change, Nick Smith, said current NZ greenhouse gas emissions were 24 per cent above the 1990 level. “This target means we’re going to have to both catch up that 24 per cent increase as well as reduce emissions by 10 or potentially 20 per cent,” he said.
Last week the Pacific Islands Forum called for a 50 per cent global cut in greenhouse gases by 2050. “We call upon world leaders to urgently increase their level of ambition and to give their negotiators fresh mandates to secure a truly effective global agreement,” the South Pacific leaders said in an August 6 statement.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said that for some Pacific nations cutting greenhouse gases was “not just a matter of importance, it is not just a matter of urgency, for many of them it is a matter of national survival,” Rudd told reporters. Australia pledged to cut its emissions by up to 15 per cent of its 2000 levels by 2020.
Seven members of the 16-member forum had asked for a 45 per cent cut by 2020. The forum comprises Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
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