National/ACT agreement economic self-sabotage

Auckland, 16 November 2008 - Greenpeace is warning that National and ACT's agreement on confidence and supply shows both parties could risk a trade backlash by lowering New Zealand's environmental standards and procrastinating over climate change.

"The world's running out of time to avoid catastrophic climate change and a good many of the world's citizens are running out of patience," said Greenpeace senior climate campaigner Simon Boxer.

"New Zealand's trade is based on feeding middle class consumers and giving them a first class Kiwi holiday. New Zealand needs these consumers a lot more than they need New Zealand," he said.

"Encouraging fossil fuel power stations, further delaying the ETS and gutting the Resource Management Act are all great incentives for the world's middle class to shop elsewhere.

They're already rejecting unsustainably caught New Zealand orange roughy and the food miles scare shows just how vulnerable New Zealand producers are to concerns about climate change," he said.

Greenpeace is calling for agriculture to be brought into the emissions trading scheme before 2013, and for New Zealand to set an emissions reduction target of 30 per cent by 2020.

ENDS

© Scoop Media