Monday, 14 May 2001

Energy Minister Pete Hodgson departs New Zealand tomorrow for Paris to join environmental meetings of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and associated informal climate change discussions.

Ministerial Sessions of the OECD Environmental Policy Committee are held every four years. The aim of this year's meeting, on 16 May, is to approve an Environmental Strategy for the OECD and member countries. Other issues to be considered are a report on key environmental indicators for OECD countries and guidelines for sustainable transport.

Mr Hodgson said the session would provide an important international benchmark for measuring New Zealand's environmental performance and raise new ideas for improving environmental quality.

The session is followed on 17 May by a Special Ministerial Session on Sustainable Development, which is an opportunity for OECD nations to develop a coordinated approach in advance of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002.

Mr Hodgson said he would be participating in informal climate change discussions taking place around the OECD meetings. Key ministers continue to work through outstanding issues concerning the Kyoto Protocol in preparation for the resumption of the sixth World Conference on Climate Change in Bonn in July.

Following the OECD meetings Mr Hodgson will spend a day in London meeting venture capital firms concerning the Government's planned venture capital fund.

Mr Hodgson returns to New Zealand on Sunday 20 May.

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>>