Reducing the use of cars, democratizing electric bicycles: New Zealand presented on Wednesday, October 12, avenues to lead the archipelago towards carbon neutrality by 2050.
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One month before the COP26 meeting of world leaders on climate in Glasgow, these proposals, already criticized by environmental organizations, foreshadow a government plan to reduce emissions due to be presented in May. New Zealand urged to take more action to cut its rising carbon emissions, but the plan being drafted makes little mention of the agricultural sector, which contributes 48% of its greenhouse gas emissions Greenhouse.
Greenpeace said the plan is
"full of nonsense"
and does not specifically address the issue of reducing emissions from agriculture. The Generation Zero organization described it as
"shameful"
and
"unambitious"
, considering that it
"completely ignores agriculture, which represents half of our emissions"
.
Climate Change Minister James Shaw countered that an entire work program deals with the agricultural sector.
“We didn't want to include things that have already been the subject of consultations or are otherwise underway,”
he said.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said these measures will reduce emissions and
“can also create jobs and new opportunities for businesses and our economy”
.
Read alsoClimate: the world on a "catastrophic" path towards a warming of + 2.7 ° C
This document comes almost two years after Parliament inscribed the carbon neutrality objective in law and one year after declaring a climate emergency. Jacinda Ardern called the need to tackle climate change a matter of
“life and death”
. However, she was criticized by young Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who accused New Zealand of being
"one of the worst students on the planet"
in terms of emissions.
“People believe Jacinda Ardern and people like that are leaders”
on climate issues, Great Thunberg said in September,
“it just says how little people know about the climate crisis”
.
“Obviously the emissions haven't gone down.
It goes without saying that these people do nothing, ”
she denounced.
