Tuesday, March 10, 2009



Climate change: deep denial

Since the election, National has taken an axe to our climate change policies. They've "suspended" the ETS pending a Denier dog and pony show of a "review", repealed the biofuels obligation, dumped the thermal generation ban, and scrapped energy efficiency standards. And now, in MfE's restructuring, they've finally got rid of the last one

the sustainable households programme (helping households with energy saving tips) was being scaled back
So, that's it. Not only do we not have any policy measures to reduce emissions, but now the government won't even tell people how to reduce them voluntarily. We are back to where we were under the same crowd in the 90's: goals ("50% by 2050"), but no actual policies to achieve them. The government is still talking about how seriously they take the problem, of course, and how they plan to do something about it - but their complete lack of any concrete measures, even trivial ones like telling people how to save energy, reflects their true position: deep denial.