Graham Kennedy: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGraham Kennedy: General Debate[Sitting date: 14 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17836. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green): Last week I advised the House that the recent US National Climate Assessment report described climate change as no longer a distant threat but a clear and present danger and that that report was a corroboration of the Global Assessment Report by the United Nations a few months earlier. So we now have it officially on record that climate change is a present threat to humankind. I do not think it is possible to understate the magnitude of the threat we are facing. It is a clear and present danger in the form of the extreme weather events we have been witnessing these past few years. On the strength of a 0.8 degree temperature rise we are witnessing the likes of hurricanes Katrina and Sandy in the United States and Haiyan in the Philippines along with floods in Asia and the Americas forest fires in Russia and Australia and heatwaves and droughts in Europe and elsewhere including here.The long-term danger is greater still. Three scientific studies recently released give testimony to this. A report by National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the University of California finds that six major glaciers in West Antarctica seem to be locked in an irreversible thaw linked to global warming. Six glaciers eaten away from below by the warming waters round the ice continent are flowing fast into the Amundsen Sea according to satellite data for the past two decades. According to the lead author a large sector of the West Antarctic ice sheet has gone into “a state of irreversible retreat”. The glaciers hold enough ice to raise sea levels by 1.2 metres over a period of centuries. According to the lead author this has “passed the point of no return”. A separate study by the University of Washington focuses on one of these glaciers. The Thwaites Glacier acts as a linchpin on the rest of the West Antarctic ice sheet which contains enough ice to cause another 3 to 4 metres of sea level rise.A third study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research conveys new findings on East Antarctica which contains 10 times more ice than West Antarctica. According to the head of Potsdam’s global adaptation strategies project: “Until recently only West Antarctica was considered unstable but now we know that its … counterpart in the East might also be at risk. … We have probably overestimated the stability of East Antarctica so far.” If half of the so-called ice cork were to melt the discharge would begin and could lead to a sea level rise of another 3 to 4 metres over the long term.Of course the United Nations’ Fifth Assessment Report stretches out just one century to 2100. Its 100-year scenario is of a rise by 0.26 to 0.82 metres but scientists have known that ice melt in Antarctica will occur over centuries and as far out as 1000 years. This raises the question: how far out should humanity be concerned as a result of the consequence of its own actions? I suggest indefinitely—as far out as the humanmind can contemplate—because we temporary custodians today have no right to set a sunset clause on the human future. I invite my National colleagues in the Chamber to read from their script that this is alarmist nonsense. They are the same MPs who failed to turn up to the parliamentary briefing our Kiwi scientists gave on these issues just last October.To the extent that such ice melt is irreversible we must begin to learn to adapt. But above all we must up our game on mitigation reducing emissions—very far and very fast. Why should we care today about future generations? For those who have to ask the question there is a ready and equally self-interested answer. It is because the clear and present danger applies to New Zealand’s way of life. It puts today’s economy today’s jobs the homes we live in today and the local environment we enjoy today at risk—today. This Government’s policies are making things worse and putting New Zealand at risk through its inaction—today. The Green Party is moving as we enter the forthcoming election campaign to make climate protection one of our highest priorities.