Sustainable NZ Resources

Further to my post about Helen Clark's speech and our PM's challenge to her citizens to make New Zealand the World's first truly sustainable nation, the government have launched Sustainable a well designed and useful website with tips and advice on reducing our carbon footprints and living more sustainably. The case studies of individuals and families who have made changes to their lifestyles and homes in order to support rather than abuse our environment (as well as saving money) makes encouraging reading.

The one major disappointment of the Sustainable website is the Transport section which concentrates on car usage and does very little to encourage use of public transport, cycling and walking. As I may have suggested once or twice before, private motor vehicle in NZ is a hurdle that needs to be over come and speedily.

Another relatively new resource is the Climate Change website which is refreshingly honest about New Zealand's impact on global warming and gives the facts about NZ emissions rather than the over used and mis-representative idea that New Zealand contributes only a small amount to climate change so responsibility to reduce emissions is minimal. With a per capita rating that is almost twice that of people in the UK and nearly five times the per capita rate of China should silence the sceptics and increase the urgency to change.

Going back to the issue of transport, I am convinced that the objective to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from per capita transport by half by 2040 is not enough. Surely, with focused planning, sustainable investment and a well devised programme of advertising this can be achieved in less than 33 years!

Here are the other sustainable future targets:

1. Electricity generation - 90 % from renewable sources - by 2025
2. Electric vehicles - one of the first countries in the world to widely deploy - no date given
3. Agricultural emissions reduction research - remain a world leader
4. Agricultural greenhouse gas emissions reduction - early adoption & application of new technologies & processes
5. Forest area - achieve net increase in of 250,000 hectares from 2007 levels - by 2020

1. Seems like a good sustainable target and highly achievable within the time frame as long as we continue to keep nuclear out of the picture.
2. Sounds impressive - will need to hear plans for putting this into action. One assumes these plans will incorporate and ensure full recycling of all current non-electric cars on the roads that will otherwise be heading for a landfill near you! (shipping to China is not a viable option)
3. Nevermind the research! How about simply reducing agriculture that is not organic, bio-dynamic or otherwise sustainable and banning all intensive farming practice. This will ensure that NZ becomes a sustainable agriculture world leader and has an upper hand when global demand for non-organics falls (particularly imported), in the hopefully not too distant future!
4. Ditto above. How about saving valuable time and money by focusing on traditional technologies and processes that work without damaging the environment and providing safe, natural, nutritious, non chemically saturated food for us to eat as well as export.
5. I'm not good with numbers, but is 250,000 hectares a lot, even relatively?! (Just over 1% of NZ total land area by my crude reckoning...)

According to the website the targets will allow NZ to be carbon neutral in total energy sector by 2040. Whilst the programme is commendable in many ways (ignoring of course, the fact that it comes from a position of fear of economic reduction rather than a desire to support our ailing planet, but anyway...) I am not sure it reflects the global urgency of reducing emissions and how continued emissions are already affecting other particularly those less well equipped to deal with disasters.

I hope that these time frames can be reduced drastically and the targets achieved, particularly if NZ is to be that 1st Truly Sustainable Nation. 33 years may sound like a long time but I can't help thinking - Do we have that long???