Why hasn't Parliament followed the lead set by our local authorities and declared a climate emergency? The answer is the National Party:
The Prime Minister’s admission that she is open to the idea of declaring a climate change emergency is nothing more than hot air and rhetoric, National’s Climate Change spokesperson Todd Muller says.
“This amounts to nothing more than political posturing and virtue signalling, the Climate Change Minister himself has admitted that he expects emissions to continue to rise until the mid-2020s, and declaring an emergency would not have any impact on this.
[...]
“When governments declare emergencies they are for natural disasters and requires the full and urgent attention of all relevant government departments. This declaration lacks all such substance and is merely a feel good statement with no plan or meaningful action standing behind it.
Conveniently, they oppose any meaningful action too. They are not a party which is interested in the future of New Zealand. Instead, they're a party full of climate change deniers, who want to do as little as possible so their farmer cronies can profit while the planet burns.
Again, this shows us that any political strategy which relies on building consensus with National over climate change is doomed to failure. There is no simply consensus to be found there. Instead, the government needs to work with its own coalition partners to establish policy facts and build public support for them that National dare not challenge - just as their predecessors did with the welfare state and the anti-nuclear policy.
