As the country struggles to recover from climate-fuelled weather events like Cyclone Gabrielle, the Government has yet to come up with an effective plan to cut emissions from Aotearoa’s biggest polluter.

"Where’s the long-awaited plan to cut agricultural emissions?" asks Greenpeace climate campaigner, Christine Rose.

A Government report in response to the industry’s much-derided scheme known as He Waka Eke Noa was circulated before Christmas and looked like giving Aotearoa’s largest emitter - Big Dairy - a free pass.

A final decision was expected to be confirmed by the Cabinet early this year.

"Hopefully Chris Hipkins has thrown it in the bin," says Rose. "He Waka Eke Noa was an industry partnership, and as such set up to fail from the very beginning.

"Every sign we’ve seen so far is that it will indeed fail the climate, New Zealanders and future generations," Rose says.

The plan foreshadowed in December includes ‘the lowest possible price’ on industrial agricultural emissions - which are half of New Zealand’s total greenhouse gasses.

He Waka Eke Noa fails to reduce dairy industry emissions in particular, even though dairy cattle make up a quarter of the country’s total emissions.

The dairy industry is exempt from the Emissions Trading Scheme, and the draft He Waka Eke Noa plan rewards with incentives more than it levies the industry. It’s more a greenwashing tool than a plan for action on climate," says campaigner Christine Rose.

"We’ve suffered back-to-back climate disasters here in Te Ika-a-Māui this year, so if the Government now fails to protect people from the industry most responsible for driving climate change, there will be some very angry voters in Aotearoa."

Climate concern is a very live issue, climate strikes will take place in nine centres across Aotearoa this Friday 3 March and the latest IPSOS poll shows that concern about climate change is at an all-time high.

"The Government’s credibility on climate is at stake in the He Waka Eke Noa decision," says Rose. "This will be a climate election - every child deserves a safe and stable climate."

"History will judge this Government on its imminent decisions on industrial dairy in He Waka Eke Noa. At a time when climate change devastation is in the spotlight, the Government must throw He Waka Eke Noa in the bin. It was never fit for purpose because it lets the country’s worst polluters off the hook, and certainly isn’t fit for purpose now."

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