This year has driven home that we need urgent climate action. We’re on a tight deadline to achieve the emissions reductions needed, and there is no more time for political inaction or delay.
Across the motu, New Zealanders are calling for strong climate leadership from the Government, which gives full effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and is guided by hapū exercising their tino rangatiratanga.
We call on all political parties to commit to the following actions:
Real emissions reductions
There is no place for climate-polluting industries in Aotearoa’s future. Our Government must end coal, oil, and gas, and transition polluting industries - in particular energy, intensive dairying, and transport - to climate-friendly alternatives. Cutting climate pollution will create opportunities for a new way of living that centres people and nature, rather than industry greed.
- End new oil, gas and coal exploration and extraction on land and at sea, and commit to the Port Vila Call for a Just Transition to a Fossil Fuel Free Pacific.
- Accelerate the just transition to public and locally-owned, nature-friendly, renewable electricity, including by providing grants-based and equitable finance for new renewables, such as household solar and community energy projects.
- Transition towards high-density, low emissions communities by making public transport fares free and prioritising investment in walking, cycling, and accessible public transport infrastructure over road spending.
- Transition intensive dairying to low emissions farming by phasing out synthetic nitrogen fertiliser and imported animal feed, reducing herd size, and banning new large-scale irrigation schemes.
- Ensure our laws reflect the urgency required to address the climate crisis by strengthening the Emissions Trading Scheme, legally requiring all local and central government decisions to keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, and establishing meaningful environmental bottom lines in new planning rules.
Supporting frontlines communities
Climate change is already impacting communities around the world, including here in Aotearoa. Supporting these communities means ensuring that the effects of climate change are minimised through adaptation processes, and where they can’t be minimised, that these communities are financed throughout the recovery process, and compensated for the loss and damage caused.
- Protect communities by making room for rivers to flood safely and enabling a managed retreat from flood-prone areas, through stopping new development in coastal and river flood zones.
- Stand with affected communities in the Pacific by renewing and scaling up our climate finance commitments, with new and additional funding to address loss and damage caused by climate change.
Restoring & rewilding nature
Nature must be at the heart of New Zealand’s climate response. Not only do oceans, wetlands, and forests store huge amounts of carbon, they also play a key role in mitigating the impacts of extreme weather events. When we protect nature, we are also protecting people, communities, and Aotearoa’s future.
- Maximise native forests’ role in absorbing carbon and in protecting communities from flooding and erosion by effectively controlling deer, goats, and possums on all public land, and implementing a native reforestation programme.
- Preserve the ocean’s crucial role in storing carbon by shifting to ecosystem-based fisheries management that ends bottom trawling and restores kelp forests by reversing all kina barrens.
- Protect the role wetlands and estuaries play in storing carbon and softening extreme weather event impacts by doubling the area of wetlands in Aotearoa New Zealand.