Climate change adaptation is not enough - Generation Zero
The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlights the need to manage the unavoidable
and ensure we are avoiding the unmanageable impacts of climate change, says youth climate change organisation Generation
Zero.
Responding to the major conclusions of the report, the work of over 2000 subject experts, Generation Zero Policy
Director Alec Dawson explains, “the report shows that the impacts of climate change are already being felt across the
world in all continents, and predicts that there will be significant impacts for the next generation. These include
serious changes to the lives of people in coastal areas, global drops in crop yields, and impacts of heat waves and and
inland flooding in urban areas.”
Mr Dawson; “Adaptation is essential to manage the unavoidable but we also need to avoid the unmanageable impacts of
climate change. The reality is that on the world's current emissions path we are on track for around four degrees of
warming by 2100. In their 2012 report 'Turn down the heat', the World Bank said "there is no certainty that adaptation
to a four degree world is possible".
“Minimising these impacts depends upon a global response, and New Zealand has a huge opportunity to be a leader in
taking the world away from fossil fuel use and into a low-carbon world free from catastrophic climate change.”
“New Zealand could be following in the footsteps of countries like Denmark, with their ambitious plan to be completely
fossil fuel free by 2050 - powering all of their energy including transport from clean, renewable energy.”
“However, the current Government’s actions are taking us in the wrong direction. Official projections show our carbon
pollution continuing to grow, with the sum effect of current climate change policies predicted to reduce total emissions
by a pathetic 0.4% in 2030 compared to doing nothing at all.”
“A clean energy future is 100% possible, and if political parties are serious about protecting the future of today’s
young people they need to commit to putting in place a common sense plan to get us there.”
ENDS