Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has defended the Government's response to climate change after Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg criticised New Zealand's recent "so-called" climate emergency declaration.
In a tweet on Sunday (local time), the 17-year-old linked to a Newsroom opinion piece arguing the Government's declaration is merely virtue signalling unless it's backed by immediate action to reduce the country's carbon emissions.
"'In other words, the Government has just committed to reducing less than 1 percent of the country's emissions by 2025'," Thunberg tweeted, quoting an excerpt from the article.
She continued: "Text explaining New Zealand's so-called climate emergency declaration. This is of course nothing unique to any nation. #FightFor1Point5."
Ardern announced a climate emergency in New Zealand on December 2 to recognise the "devastating impact" extreme weather has on the country and the "alarming" loss of species.
She said on Monday that while she hasn't seen Thunberg's tweet, it's been described to her as a reference to her pledge to decarbonise the public sector by 2025.
"I would give the context there that if that was the sum ambition of any government, then that would be worthy of criticism," she told reporters. "It is not our sum ambition and it is not the totality of our plans on climate change."
The Government's plan to decarbonise the public sector by 2025 is a step towards its goal of a carbon-neutral New Zealand by 2050. The Government has also banned new offshore oil and gas exploration and established the Climate Change Commission, which will advise governments on how to meet targets set in the Zero Carbon Act passed in 2019.
As well as a goal of zero net carbon emissions by 2050, the Government has also set a target of reducing methane emissions by between 24 and 47 percent by the same year.
"I think it's only a good thing that there are people out there continuing to urge ambition and action," Ardern said of Thunberg's tweet.
Climate Change Minister James Shaw admitted earlier on Monday that New Zealand still has "a long way to go" to bring down emissions.
"Greta Thunberg is essentially pointing out what we already know: that we have a long way to go to narrow the gap between what our emissions are right now, and what they need to be in the future," he told Newshub.
"We are working on this as quickly as we can and the declaration of a climate emergency is actually helping - because now every part of Government is clear that action to cut emissions is a priority."
Shaw argued that's what a climate emergency declaration should do.
"It is not an end in itself, rather it signals our intent to do everything we can to tackle the climate crisis and build a better, safer future for our kids and grandkids."
The National Party opposed the Government's climate emergency declaration and called it "virtue signalling".
"Declaring a climate emergency is nothing but virtue signalling," National's climate change spokesperson Stuart Smith said in Parliament. "Symbolic gestures just don't cut it."
In comparison, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is pledging to reduce the country's emissions by 68 percent by 2030 and to stop funding international fossil fuel projects.
