RAM - Residents Action Movement Media release 26 August 2008 Green co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons today claimed that her party had won "substantial changes" to the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) following talks with Labour cabinet ministers. How accurate is this claim by Ms Fitzsimons? Going into the talks with Labour, the most loudly voiced concerns of the Green Party caucus were that the agriculture and transport sectors were not coming into the ETS early enough. Ms Fitzsimons today said that now "a target for agricultural emissions reduction before 2015 will be gazetted". But is this really a "substantial change" to the ETS? Not according to Grant Morgan, chair of the Residents Action Movement, better known as RAM, a broad left people's movement. "One very important word has been left out of the new agreement on the ETS," Mr Morgan observed. "That word is 'mandatory'. So long as a closer target for agricultural emissions reduction is not made mandatory, it's just a lot of hot air. It's government spin because agriculture does not have to meet the voluntary target. Sadly, the Greens are recycling Labour's spin and thus misleading public opinion." Nor will there be any hastening of the transport sector's entry into the ETS under the new deal struck between Labour and the Greens. "The transport sector will remain able to pollute with impunity until 2015," noted Roger Fowler, RAM's transport spokesperson. "As well, the Green caucus has consistently refused to support RAM's campaign over the last four years for free and frequent public transport as a boldly realistic way of slashing carbon emissions. We need to shift motorway funds into fare-free trains and buses, but the Greens won't agree because they know Labour strongly disapproves. They are putting their political pact with Labour ahead of our environment." Going on the evidence, neither of the two most loudly voiced Green concerns have been met by Labour's recent tweakings of the ETS. This is at variance with Green claims of "substantial changes", which appear to be mostly aimed at winning votes. "RAM calls on the Green Party leadership to reject the Emissions Trading Scheme as a whole," said Michelle Ducat, RAM's ecology co-spokesperson. "The solution to climate change does not lie in creating a market for pollution, where corporations trade their greenhouse gas credits and debits on a new stock exchange. This is merely placing the market in charge of the problem that they created in the first place." Ms Ducat's comments seem to be vindicated by the experiences of Europe. In many Western European countries, emissions trading schemes have been in place for years, yet official statistics reveal that greenhouse gas pollution has been increasing, not decreasing. Late last week, Green leaders called for responses on whether their party should support or reject the ETS. Yesterday a Green Party spokesperson revealed that the 2,000 email responses were split 50:50. Since most of these responses were likely to be from Green members, it seems their rank-and-file are split down the middle over the issue. "It is very worrying that the Green Party caucus refuse to call the Emissions Trading Scheme by its real name - a pollution market," said RAM chair Grant Morgan. "Big corporations around the world are raking in grotesque profits from trading in greenhouse gases which could kill off all life on our planet. Their pollution market is both immoral and scary." "RAM has put up a positive, robust alternative to the Green Party MP's who are giving away ecology as they cuddle up to Labour," said Mr Morgan. "In our RAM Plan, we put humans and our habitat before the profits and power of the big corporations who think they can dictate to everyone else on the planet." Backgrounders:
For more information, contact:
Grant Morgan
021 2544 515
grantmorgan@paradise.net.nz
Roger Fowler
021 2999 491
mangere.east.access@paradise.net.nz
Michelle Ducat
027 308 2521
michelle@ducat.co.nz
Evo Morales, president of BoliviaUNITYblog is going to begin asking regular questions on important political, social and ideological issues. We will be posting the answers we receive up on UNITYblog. The goal is to generate some lively and intelligent debate that will help us understand the world today and what we need to do to make the transition away from the market towards a human centred society. The first UNITYblog question is:
Do we need a new constitution for Aotearoa?
If so, what might a new constitution look like? And how do we go about achieving a new constitution? Your answers can be any length, short or long. Send to editor@unityblognz.com They can be anonymous, or provide a name and how you wish to be identified. All contributions must comply with UNITYblog policy of not posting sectarian, silly or personal content. I look forward to your responses. In solidarity, Vaughan Gunson UNITYblog editor email: editor@unityblognz.com ph/txt: 021-0415 082 See also
Could the Treaty of Waitangi be incorporated into a re-founded people's constitution of Aotearoa?
by Vaughan Gunson from UNITY journal July 2008 Last year the United Nations produced a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People which had been 24 years in the drafting. It was finally presented to the UN General Assembly to be ratified. The vote: 143 for and only 4 against. The countries that opposed this reasonable, but far from radical, declaration were the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Maori in this country were outraged. Dr Pita Sharples, Maori Party co-leader, said it was “shameful to the extreme, that New Zealand voted against the outlawing of discrimination against Indigenous People; voted against justice, dignity and fundamental freedoms for all.” The reason Helen Clark’s Labour government gave for voting against the declaration was that the definitions of self-determination extended to the exclusive control of territorial resources. This, they said, threatened the sovereignty of the nation state. Echoing claims made by former National Party leader Don Brash in his infamous “race speech” of 2004, the government claimed that the UN declaration was “discriminatory” and could see “separatist minorities breaking up countries”.
by Matt McCarten
from NZ Herald
3 August 2008
Call issued by the organising committee for the July 5 Climate Emergency rally in Melbourne
Climate change is already occurring, much faster than the world’s scientists have predicted. Recent data including the very real possibility of the arctic sea-ice melting by September this year demonstrate that this is a climate emergency.
We are concerned that the Australian government’s proposed Emissions Trading Scheme will be full of loopholes and by the government’s own admission will allow emissions to continue rising for some years. We believe such incremental measures are unacceptable: We need greenhouse emissions to start to fall immediately and sharply.
To begin to solve the problem we need action on many fronts including:
We call for a national week of protests across Australia at the Spring Equinox, in the week beginning September 21. This week of action can highlight the summer melt of the Arctic ice and other worrying signs that demand urgent measures to de-carbonize the economy from state and Federal governments.
We ask climate change campaign groups and networks and all environmentally concerned organizations across Australia to work together for a coordinated and effective week of public protest around these themes.
