01/02/2021
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
The Prime Minister says it is incredibly encouraging that the Climate Change Commission s first official report shows that reaching our emissions reduction goals are both achievable and affordable.
The commission s first report, published on Monday, laid out a path to drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions to meet the Paris Agreement targets.
Three new targets for the country were set: an average reduction of 2 percent each year between 2022 and 2025, 17 percent each year between 2025 and 2030 and 36 percent each year between 2030 and 2035.
Commission chair Dr Rod Carr said investing in electric vehicles, renewable energy generation, climate-friendly farming practices and planting more native forests would be critical to meeting the targets.
On his first day in the White House, President Joe Biden has signed a stack of executive orders to undo Trump-era policies.
Climate Change Minister James Shaw says the United States will need to rebuild its credibility on climate change with serious domestic action. His comment came following a long phone-call with former US Secretary of State and Democratic nominee John Kerry on Wednesday morning, who has been appointed US climate envoy by new US President Joe Biden. Shaw said the conversation was encouraging and lasted almost an hour, with Kerry indicating a willingness for the US to tackle climate change seriously, and showing an interest in New Zealand s climate-related financial disclosure scheme and emissions trading scheme (ETS).
Housing crisis, Covid misinformation, racism: Problems flagged to new ministers
The Government has published all the ministers briefings on their portfolios. Photo / Supplied
Housing crisis, Covid misinformation, racism: Problems flagged to new ministers Wed, 16 Dec 2020, 4:19PM
Racism in health, extremism in prisons, light rail in Auckland, coronavirus misinformation and an ongoing housing crisis are among the priorities outlined to incoming ministers in hundreds of pages of documents released this morning.
The Briefings to Incoming Ministers (BIM) were released on the Beehive website at 10am.
The briefings are from officials on important and developing issues in their respective portfolios as well as previous work in key policy areas.