New Zealand Celsias

In  2012 the weather became the news in so many places in the world. In 2012 in the US so many temperature and drought records were set it became repetitive .

And still climate change was kept out of the frame in the Presidential debate.

And then Sandy hit the financial hub of the US. And it just about pipped the election.

But finally within this last week we have had President Obama say climate change has to be addressed, Vice President Joe Biden has said he wants to deal with climate change this term, and John Kerry, also very well informed on climate change, is going to be Secretary of State.The US is suddenly changing.

Now the President of the World Bank group -hardly radicals – has said climate change has to be top of the agenda.

Is the weather , which is making climate change so visible so quickly, having some real impact?
Australia has been on fire for much of the month and Russia , and Europe and the US have been in the grip of temperatures so low that they make the usual life functions impossible .Cars can’t go. Aeroplanes can’t fly. Even the water in  fire hoses freezes. Life as we know it is changing rapidly.

And now that the weather is the news, do we think that perhaps its now so visible that inaction is simply not an option?
Dare we believe that 2013 is a year for action?

We think that may actually be the case for the US. China probably already has the greenest plan for any country in their last 5 year plan and although it has a huge way to go so the air doesn’t make you gag it is actually very focussed on doing so. Germany and Japan are taking huge steps. Even the UK , under its Conservative lead coalition is taking giant strides.

New Zealand ? Not so!

And don’t hold your breath on that one for 2013. The body language in the  responses to the questions in the  House on climate change say a great deal. Tim Groser is smug on climate change and Steven Joyce and John Key look at the Greens and their views on climate change as though they really are from a different planet. The complete lack of respect for their views is palpable .

So what can we look forward to for this year on climate change ?

Very little indeed from the Government 

• We will stay out of post Kyoto deals .
• Our much vaunted Emissions Trading Scheme becomes largely irrelevant since carbon is priced so low and the 49% of emissions that are agriculture related stay completely exempt
• The carbon forestry schemes that the Government promoted vigorously through its own Ministries become nothing like what was sold to them
• Mauis dolphins are critically endangered
• Clean green economies promoted by Pure Advantage,or Greenpeace or  by the president of the World Economic group no less, are seen as somehow not real and dismissed
•  Our water quality declines
• The Government will keep pushing its mantra of drill, mine and frack - and we will keep resisting them. And we will delight when more of them follow the lead of Petrobras and leave.
• The means by which we could take renewable energy to the Pacific and beyond -our State owned enterprises, will be the subject of a referendum and the Government won't wait for the results before listing 
• Oh, and we keep the 100% Pure slogan . Where once it was a wonderful aspiration, now its almost something that feels like its waiting for some Fair-trade type challenge.

So, fortunately, even Australia has leapfrogged New Zealand in the climate change stakes. A functioning cost on carbon and a massive cleantech fund. Germany is miles in front, and Japan’s Feed in Tariff will drive renewables massively .

It’s bad , I know when Australia is way ahead of us on climate change. But sadly under this government that’s not likely to change.

The US may well start taking serious action and we will be in the greedy , polluting countries somewhere alongside Canada!

But, that's just the government ...and maybe its really over to us .