Graham Kennedy: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGraham Kennedy: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 30 January 2014. Volume:696;Page:15736. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green): The Prime Minister opened this debate with the claim that the Government is continuing with its plan to build a faster growing economy with more jobs and rising incomes. New Zealand he says will return to surplus reduce debt increase productivity and then reform the Public Service. This is the same six-point mantra from his original speech from the throne back in 2008. As with then Mr Key omitted any reference to the excessive reliance on and active promotion of a fossil fuel economy. More than anything else Mr Key’s fossil-fuelled economy will mark National’s two-term tenure.The Prime Minister’s statement is about the state of the nation. The nation of course is deeply influenced by the state of the planet but not a word from the Prime Minister about the fragile global economy its 50 percent ecological overshoot its skewed inequality its rotten financial system or its deteriorating capacity to sustain a global population—not one word. It is as if we live in a cocoon down here insulated from external vagaries by an earthquake rebuild high milk prices and Australasian banks.Disregard for the real world marks the Government’s climate policy as well. Its senior Ministers display a breathtaking ignorance of the threat of climate change. Last September the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change produced the first section of its Fifth Assessment Report showing that dangerous and perhaps catastrophic climate change was guaranteed on current global emission projections. The UN Secretary-General urged the world to pay heed to the report saying: “The heat is on. We must act.” What was the response of this New Zealand Government? A target of 5 percent for 2020 one-sixth of what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says is required.The US Secretary of State said that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report was “yet another wake-up call. Those who deny the science”—he said—“or choose excuses over action are playing with fire.” What was the response of theMinister of Transport? He found the hypothesis of anthropogenic emissions to be an “interesting prospect”. For his part the Minister for Climate Change Issues found it necessary to inform the 19th UN Climate Change Conference in Warsaw last month to “Make no mistake—climate change is a global problem.” oblivious to the fact that this had been formally acknowledged by the international community a quarter of a century previous when he was a trade diplomat.But of course it was the Prime Minister himself who said as recently as 2005 that he was sceptical of global warming. Well Prime Minister the New Zealand scientists who lead the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change work are not sceptical. They were not sceptical back in 2005 and not even in 1990 when the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report came in. But this explains a lot about the Key Government. Last week the European Union demonstrated once again its leadership in climate policy with an announcement by the European Commission of a 2030 target of 40 percent off its 1990 level. Everything is relative of course in the wonderland that is the 21st century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had 7 years ago identified that reduction as a minimum for 2020. But the target of 40 percent even for 2030 is simply way ahead of the rest of the world.So what are the chances of New Zealand doing its fair share in global emissions reductions for 2030? We learnt that during question time. The Government has no intention of announcing any figure for 2030. In fact the Government’s own projections show a blowout in emissions over that period. Gross-to-net emissions will increase by 50 percent from 61 to 90 million tonnes in 2028; net-to-net emissions will increase 300 percent from 32 to 98 million tonnes.This of course is why the Prime Minister touches on the prosaic when he delivers his annual state of the nation speech. He says nothing about the big world picture out there nothing about what is required to secure the next generation—nothing much at all really.