Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons today hailed the draft national Energy Efficiency and Conservation national strategy as a milestone on the path to a sustainable energy future.

"This path has occupied me personally for the last 25 years since I first engaged with energy policy in the 1970's debate on nuclear power. Since then New Zealand has become steadily less sustainable with massive growth in energy use and much less reliance on renewables than we used to have.

Ms Fitzsimons' Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act, passed last year, required New Zealand's first ever national Energy Efficiency and Conservation strategy to be developed.

"The next crucial phase is for the public to debate this and get involved, otherwise the strategy will be no more than nice words on a piece of paper. The roadshow will make that public participation possible."

Ms Fitzsimons said some might find the target confusing. "The 20 percent reduction target is not a 20 percent reduction in energy use, but a reduction in the growth of energy use. It is hard to measure and I would be in favour of setting a more easily understood and measured target."

"The consultation document asked that the public say whether the target is good enough. I predict that many people will say that it's not high enough, we should be setting a stronger target."

Ms Fitzsimons said current proposals from three different energy companies to build new gas-fired power stations were pulling New Zealand in the other direction.

"If these new power stations get built, they will get used and the positive measures set out in this strategy will seem trivial in comparison."

"In the same way, if we keep building new motorways, public transport will save very little energy because it will not be used."

Ends

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>