31 January 2013

Kennedy Graham memo to John Key and Tim Groser - you are on the wrong side of history

Kennedy Graham gave a great speech in response to the annual Prime Minister's statement. This is the full speech

"Lord Nicholas Stern acknowledged just days ago that he had "got it wrong". Climate change is already far worse than he thought it would be only 6 years ago when he released his report."

"We are no longer likely to achieve the 2 degrees Celsius limit that the international community set for itself only 2 years ago. We are now on target for 3.5 degrees to 6 degrees. That takes us beyond the dangerous dimension of climate change, which the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change sought to prevent, and into what the World Bank calls "cataclysmic" climate change."

"What to say to a Government that in face of these developments guts its domestic climate legislation and refuses to enter a second binding international commitment period?"

"What to say to a Prime Minister who, in his annual statement to Parliament, omits climate change on the grounds that he touched on it last year?"

"What to say to a Minister for Climate Change Issues who says that New Zealand is ahead of the curve, that it is time to move beyond the Kyoto Protocol and join the largest polluters of the world, and who derides the global civil society when it criticises New Zealand for being one of the chief obstacles to progress at the UN conference in Doha?"

"We say this to John Key and Tim Groser. We say this: you are on the wrong side of history, both of you, in your respective ways."

Kia kaha, Kennedy!

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