NZ's clean, green 'reality check'

A column in a leading British newspaper which accuses New Zealanders of unjustifiably trading off their "clean, green 100 per cent pure" imagery doesn't make for nice reading, Green Party co-leader Russel Norman says.

"But while it may be harsh, there's a lot of truth in it," Mr Norman said.

"It looks like the rest of the world is catching on to New Zealand's dirty little secret."

Fred Pearce, a columnist for The Guardian newspaper gave "the prize for the most shameless two fingers to the global community to New Zealand, a country that sells itself round the world as `clean and green', but had increased greenhouse gas emissions by a whopping 22 per cent since signing up to reduce them at Kyoto".

Mr Pearce was outraged New Zealand had a reputation for global leadership in tackling climate change, when the country's minister in charge of climate negotiations, Tim Groser, had said the Government would not try to be "leaders" in climate change.

Dr Norman – a vocal critic of issues such as "dirty dairying" said that on many international issues New Zealand punched above its weight, but not on climate change.

This was a risk, because dairy exports and international tourism both depended on the integrity of "Brand New Zealand".

Climate Change Minister Nick Smith said the report said Labour's policies were not credible and New Zealand could not live up to the high expectations.

"The rhetoric of New Zealand being a world leader on climate change has been at odds with a trebling in coal-generated electricity, record felling of trees, and large increases in our gross emissions over the past decade," he said.

"We have had to give New Zealand's climate change policy a reality check. We are not claiming New Zealand can be a world leader in emissions cuts or the first carbon-neutral country in the world. Our policy is for New Zealand to do its fair share and this will be challenging given our unique emission profile dominated by agriculture.

Mr Pearce said New Zealand had a "generous" initial Kyoto target of keeping its emissions to the same level as 1990, but its emissions were now 60 per cent higher than those of Britain, per head of population.

"Among industrialised nations, they are only exceeded by Canada, the US, Australia and Luxembourg.

"With more cows than people, the country's increasingly intensive agricultural sector is responsible for approaching half the greenhouse gas emissions," he said.

And the country had only promised a measly 50 per cent in emissions by 2050 – something even the US could trump.

The Government hoped to pass its legislation by Christmas and introduce a carbon price by July next year.

Mr Pearce said that the "commercial greenwash" was being used to promote both tourism and dairy exports, and that the national marketing strategy was underpinned by a survey showing that tourism would be reduced by 68 per cent if the country lost its prized "clean, green image", and even international purchases of its dairy products could halve.

However Victoria University Professor of Public Policy Jonathan Boston said Mr Pearce had not taken into account that New Zealand had a change of government and National was not committed to the former Labour government's pledge to go carbon neutral.

In spite of this, he said New Zealand was being held to high standards because it promoted a clean, green image and also because of the stance Labour had taken.

But the argument still stood up based on the fact that New Zealand's track record on environmental issues such as per capita greenhouse gas emissions as well as water and air quality, did not stack up.

"We perform well below where we should, worse than many countries that we would probably wish to compare ourselves favourably with," he said.

"While we are not despoiling the environment as badly as some countries, we cannot in my view consistently call ourselves 100 percent pure and lean and green and so on, given the robust data that challenges that."

He said even under Labour, we were not on track to achieve our carbon-neutral ambitions.

He did not agree that New Zealand's original target was soft, as Mr Pearce claimed, but agreed emissions growth had been high.

This was due to a population growth, faster than anticipated economic growth and a political failure to address the problem.

"In effect for most of the last two decades, government has failed to take measures of an effective nature to reduce the growth of emissions and we're still in the midst of a serious problem in achieving that objective."

He said the changes to the emissions trading laws such as the removal of a cap on emissions levels and a free allocation of a large number of emissions units would render the law "almost ineffective".

It would also place more of a burden on taxpayers, he said.

Tourism New Zealand spokeswoman Cas Carter said it was satisfied New Zealand was living up to the expectations of tourist and it's "100 percent Pure" campaign.

The Guardian article was balanced by the recent positive press abroad, including Whale Watch Kaikoura scooping the supreme prize at the Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards. Ms Carter said she did not think it's impact on perceptions of New Zealand would be too severe.

-with MICHAEL FOX

- NZPA