“A future of flood and drought painted by NIWA is the reality of an unabated climate crisis,” says Green Party Co-leader and spokesperson for Climate Change, Chlöe Swarbrick.  

“These projections show us that climate delay is the new denial, and emphasise how this Government’s plan to increase emissions will cost us all dearly.

“We can have an economy that works for people and planet, instead of exploiting both. That means stopping pollution at the source and ensuring a just transition.

“Instead, the Government’s draft Emissions Reduction Plan relies on technologies that are not guaranteed and planting pine trees. This lack of ambition will take us off track to reach 2050 carbon neutrality, and worse, compound inequality. Luxon’s over-reliance on market mechanisms will cost the poorest New Zealanders four times as much money as the wealthiest.

“We cannot ignore inconvenient truths. We’re talking about the hard scientific fundamentals necessary for life on earth as we know it. This can and must be yet another wake-up call to meet the climate crisis with the scale of transformative action it requires.

“The climate crisis is no longer a yarn about future generations. We’re talking about the growing risk of climate-change-charged weather like the Auckland Anniversary floods and Cyclone Gabrielle becoming all the more commonplace in our lifetimes, directly exacerbated by immense pollution enabled by negligent Government policies.

“It’s time for Christopher Luxon to show some leadership and live up to his own word that we will meet our climate commitments - which his own Government policy plans currently themselves say we’ll miss,” says Chlöe Swarbrick.