Climate change: National gives up

Yesterday, National passed its ETS amendments through the House, gutting the ETS and turning it into a giant subsidy-scheme for polluters. Now, they've dropped the other shoe, announcing that we are giving up on Kyoto and will not be signing up for a second Commitment period. Instead, we've chosen to stand behind the deniers and the do-nothings by adopting voluntary, non-binding (and therefore pointless and ineffective) "targets" under the UNFCCC. In other words, we have chosen to stand on the side of ecocide.

That gurgling noise you can hear is the sound of our clean, green reputation going down the toilet.

Its been obvious for a while that the New Zealand government will not act credibly on climate change until we face border carbon taxes and trade sanctions on our polluter exports. With this move, I think we've lost the last shred of an excuse against such measures. And when the Europeans impose them on us, we'll have no-one to blame but ourselves.