Tuesday 4 December 2018

The Māori Climate Commissioner, Donna Awatere Huata, says the latest research from The Lancet demands an immediate response from the Government.

"The Lancet is considered one of the most respected medical journals and their release last week of a report on the health impact of climate change calls on politicians to acknowledge the danger and answer how the current mild climate change policy hopes to combat that threat."

The Lancet predicts crop yield failures leading to malnutrition, increased risk of dengue fever and the direct threat from extreme weather events causing injuries, deaths, displacement and post-traumatic stress.

"One major threat to health from a dramatically warming planet is the ability of workers to just be able to do their jobs in soaring temperatures. There is a point where being outside in extreme heat is simply too dangerous. New Zealand-based environmental and occupational health expert, Professor Todd Kjellstrom, wrote in the report that hotter temperatures cost 153 billion hours of productive work. What was most alarming about that figure is that it was based on temperatures from 2017! This is the reality of the global warming world we now face and to date, New Zealand's politicians have offered a vague promise to be carbon neutral in 32 years."

"Climate change is happening right here, right now. Without radical responses like mass tree planting, large increases in green energy research and a fundamental re-ordering of the economic and social settings, the conclusions The Lancet predicts will become unavoidable."

"We must stop letting politicians off the hook when it comes to demanding solutions in the here and now."

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