Shaw JamesJAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): As we stand here to debate New Zealand's response to climate change the second cyclone in the space of a week is bearing down on New Zealand. As this debate got started my wife sent me a text message to let me know that Ōhope where she and I had been planning to spend the Easter holiday at my Aunt Sally's house is currently being evacuated. All of us have the instinct to help people to help our family and our friends who are caught up in the path of this storm but we also know that the work that will matter the most is the work of the men and women who are reinforcing the flood banks the civil defence staff who are preparing for evacuation and our emergency services that are supporting those in need.So despite our instincts us being here in this House preparing our response to the challenge of climate change is actually the best and most important thing that we here can do. It is remarkable that MPs from all parties are here today to find a common pathway to tackle this crisis. We have come a long way since Shane Ardern drove his tractor up the steps of Parliament. Our climate debate here in New Zealand and around the world has gone through four stages of denial: first that it is not happening; second that if it is happening it is not caused by us; third that if it is caused by us it actually is not that bad; and fourth if it is that bad well actually there is nothing we can do about it. All four of those stages have a response: it is happening it is us it is bad and we can do something about it. It is that fourth and final debate that we are having here today: what we choose to do about it. After more than two decades of dithering and debate—for more than half my lifetime we have argued about this while our emissions have relentlessly risen—we are well past time to take action.There is a saying that the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago but the second best time is today. This report maps out the paths that we can take to help halt the climate crisis and to make New Zealand stronger and more resilient and more prosperous. The Green Party is unalterably committed to ambitious action on climate change. We choose the path that will lead New Zealand to net zero emissions by 2050. In Government the Greens will do what is needed for New Zealand to achieve that goal of having net zero emissions by the year 2050. It will require change in New Zealand but it will be change for the better. Our homes will be made warmer and healthier and more energy efficient. Our electricity supply will be 100 percent renewable. It will run on wind and geothermal and solar energy. The cars and the vans and the trucks that we drive will be more efficient more affordable and electric. Formerly erosion-prone land will be covered in lush new forests and bush drawing down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. If we take this path it will create a New Zealand that we love even more than we do today.Reasonable people often ask me: Look New Zealand represents 0.2 percent of global emissions. Why should we take up this challenge?" First of all the countries that each individually represent one percent or less of global emissions add up to over a third of all global emissions. If every country like New Zealand abrogated its responsibilities global emissions would continue to rise. Second of all it is simply the right thing to do and New Zealand has a proud tradition of doing what is right. We did not wait for the rest of the world to get its act together before women won the right to vote. We did not wait for Russia and the US to lay down their arms—and it is clear they have not—before we became nuclear-free. And I do not remember anybody telling us that we should not stand up to apartheid because we were too small to make a difference.The world needs leaders especially today. More selfishly there is so much in it for us. New Zealand has an almost unique opportunity to become the world's first fully sustainable economy anywhere in the world to show the rest of the world how it is done and to make our way in the world that way. Consumers around the world are crying out for sustainably grown food and they are willing to pay for it. That is why organic milk powder fetches more than three times on the international market what conventionally produced milk powder does. Our farmers are some of the most productive most adaptable and most creative in the world. We can win the race to become the world's leading producer of sustainably created food and if we lead other nations will come to us for the technology and the skills that we have created to produce sustainably grown food.Put simply the things that we need to do to reduce our own greenhouse gas emissions also present us with the greatest economic opportunity in at least a generation. As the Vivid Economics report itself says this is a huge challenge although it is one that is laced with opportunity. For the prosperity of our country and for a New Zealand that we can continue to be proud of it is an opportunity we must seize.I would like to finish by acknowledging the work that has gone on in Parliament to produce this report. It may well be lost on people outside of this Chamber actually how big a deal it is to have MPs from every single party in Parliament working together on anything let alone climate change. It is not just the greatest challenge of our time but the greatest challenge of all time. To all members of Parliament involved in GLOBE-NZ—and there are one in four members of this Parliament involved in GLOBE-NZ—thank you for putting aside your differences to put your country first.I would like to acknowledge the Hon Paula Bennett the Minister for Climate Change Issues and Deputy Prime Minister for a surprisingly open and constructive approach. Things have started to change as a result in the last 12 months. I would like to say a special word of thanks to Vivid Economics and to the organisations and individuals who sponsored its work and who contributed to it. I would like to thank my colleague and the chair of GLOBE-NZ Dr Kennedy Graham. As others have said—and I will say it here again—we are here today only because Kennedy has persisted above petty partisan politics to shepherd us through to this point. That some things are bigger than politics is a core principle of the Green Party but I think few embody it as keenly as Kennedy. I am proud to call him my colleague. Putting New Zealand on a path to a zero-emissions future will require all of us working across the political divide and getting to net zero emissions by 2050 is going to take all of us and it is going to take everything that we have got. As a different Kennedy once said some will ask why choose this as our goal? And may they well ask: why climb the highest mountain? We choose this goal not because it is easy but because it is hard because that goal will serve to organise and measure the best of our energies and skills because that goal is one that we are willing to accept one that we are unwilling to postpone and one that we intend to win. Thank you."