James Shaw denies climate change strategy just talk, admits it doesn't fly with student protestors

September 30, 2019

The Climate Change Minister says the Government has a huge programme of work and anything it does isn't going to feel like enough.

Climate Change Minister James Shaw has denied the Government's strategy on the issue is just talk, saying there's a huge programme of work, but admitting it doesn't fly with the thousands of protestors who rallied last Friday.

The School Strike 4 The Climate saw an estimated 170,00 people around the country march in protest against inaction.

That came after Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg told world leaders at the UN they "have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. You are failing us".

The 16-year-old Swede implored all nations to act on climate change, and act now.

And nine-Year-old Kiwi girl Naomi George told a rally at Parliament, "We need to put Greta's words into action, we need to act now."

Mr Shaw tonight told TVNZ1's Q+A that by the end of this Parliament the Government will have created a legally binding agreement to live within 1.5 degrees of temperature rise, reformed the Emissions Trading Scheme, started the process of pricing agricultural emissions and introduced emissions standards in cars among other measures.

Interviewer Jessica Mutch McKay asked if it's just talk, given that he hasn't got the Zero Carbon Bill through yet, agriculture is not part of the ETS and the plastic bags ban is not big in the scheme of things. 

"No I don't believe it's just talk," the minister replied. "I do believe that we have a huge programme of work."

But he said for 30 years politicians have been dithering on climate change, "and the window of opportunity to fix this thing is closing rapidly". 

Mr Shaw said while the Government is making progress he completely agrees with the protestors.

"We've got to go further, we've got to go faster."

The fate of the Pacific Ocean and an end to fossil fuel use were at the forefront of protestors minds.

When Mutch McKay said the protestors want "big societal change" and Mr Shaw was "not delivering that", he replied it takes time to turn a supertanker.

"I mean this is a sort of a whole of economy effort that we're engaged in here. And what our Government is doing is we're putting a framework in place for some huge shifts over a 30 year time horizon," he said.

"You've got to do that big institutional stuff and it's got to last. That's why we're trying to build cross-party consensus."

Asked will that fly with someone like Naomi George who's passionately and emotionally appealing to him, the minister said, "I don't think it does fly.

"That's not what they want to hear. And I can completely understand why that is because every week, every day now we get new stories about how the Antarctica's melting faster than we thought it was going to.

"You'll get these big methane releases coming out of the tundra in northern Europe, you've got these wildfires in the arctic of all places, the Amazon is on fire.

"The sense of crisis is growing here. So I completely understand why anything that we do isn't going to feel like enough."

But Mr Shaw said there's no holdup to the Zero Carbon Bill.

"We have done everything that we can to bring National along with us, but ultimately it's their choice to decide how they're going to vote on it," the minister said.

* Q+A is on TVNZ1 on Mondays at 9.30pm, and the episode is then available on TVNZ OnDemand and as a podcast in all the usual places.

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