Ardern responds to Greta Thunberg's criticism over NZ's climate change declaration

December 14, 2020

The PM says said “it’s only a good thing” people are out there to “urge ambition and action”.

Jacinda Ardern has responded to a tweet from Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg criticising the New Zealand Government’s declaration on climate change.

Taking to Twitter, the 17-year-old said New Zealand's "so-called climate emergency declaration” is “nothing unique to any nation” because it is only — effectively — committing to reducing less than one per cent of the country’s emissions by 2025.

Ardern said she hadn’t seen the tweet but said it had been described to her as a “reference to our public service carbon neutral goal of 2025”.

“I would, of course, give the context there that, if that was the sum ambition of any government, then that would be worthy of criticism.

“It is not our sum ambition. And it is not the totality of our plans on climate change,” she said.

Ardern said she thinks it is a “good thing that there are people out there continuing to urge ambition and action”.

Thunberg's tweet today comes after the Government declared the emergency on December 2.

The Government pledged that all coal boilers would be phased out, agencies would reduce the number of cars in its fleets, require the purchasing of hybrids and EVs, and energy emission building standards would be met.

But, according to reporting on Newsroom that Thunberg made reference to in her tweet, that promise would only reduce New Zealand’s emissions by 483,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, out of its total emissions of 78.9 million tonnes a year.


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