Hughes GarethGARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou kia ora. It was 30 years ago this week that James Hansen the head of NASA's Goddard space science centre told the US Senate in historic testimony The greenhouse effect has been detected and it is changing our climate now." Thirty years on that same scientist says the world is failing miserably at the challenge of climate change. If you look at the science someone born 30 years ago today has not known a below-average global temperature month their entire lifetime. What we know of global climate policy 30 years on is the temperature's still rising pollution's still rising the ice caps are still melting the seas are still rising. We're seeing more extreme weather events: we're seeing floods droughts fire—an increase in them; the speed is taking off. Even this week in Nature it was reported some of the world's oldest trees—Africa's baobab trees—are dying and climate change is the prime culprit. These trees have survived since the Roman Empire gone through multiple climate fluctuations; yet rapid climate change is affecting them now.Amidst the floods the droughts the wildfires there is a ray of hope in what is otherwise a doom and gloom story. And here's where I in the general debate actually do a shout-out to the National Party. A ray of hope is the call from Simon Bridges to work with the Government on climate change issues. I'm incredibly hopeful. It's something I know James Shaw as our country's climate change Minister wants to see cross-party consensus on climate policy. We need to see we want to see an enduring climate solution and having all parties agree to it would be a step forward.But it reminds me of a time that I was in Kiribati with Murray McCully about six or seven years ago. There some of the poorest people in a country no more than half a metre above sea level—for them climate change they told me wasn't something happening in the Arctic or in the academic papers; it was something happening there now. It was their lived experience. In fact they were using the only materials at their disposal—rubbish and waste—to try and build sea walls to stop the rising seas coming in. What could I as a New Zealand politician six or seven years ago say to them? The official Government line back under the previous Government that we were such a small country that our emissions didn't matter? Could I say to them that in fact the Government policies were intensifying—more cows more coal more carbon—that the Government was gutting the emissions trading scheme; that we were a so-called "fast follower" on the world stage; that our country was approaching climate change deals as trade deals trying to maximise opportunities for our self-benefit despite the impact on countries like Kiribati? I felt deeply ashamed as a Kiwi on the world stage knowing we weren't doing enough.I contrast that to earlier this year when I was talking to representatives from Mauritius and the Seychelles—again small Island States. I was so proud to be able to tell them that under the current Government the Government was setting a bold visionary world-first zero carbon by 2050 target. It was a Government which was fixing our emissions trading scheme. It was a Government which was establishing a Climate Commission; investigating 100 percent clean energy solar panels on schools a revamped home insulation scheme; stopping coalmining on the conservation estate; and starting a just transition away from oil drilling. We actually finally saw a separation of oil and State—no more subsidies going to the oil drillers and polluters. It was such a contrast because here we have a historic opportunity to do something about climate change to do something for our friends and whānau in the Pacific in Kiribati and other countries—a transformational opportunity.And here is where the opportunity is for the National Party because they've said they're going to reset their policies on the environment I think acknowledging the terrible track record we saw. So my challenge to National is: are you going to walk the walk on climate change and environmental policy or just talk the talk? It's not a reset if you still support coalmining oil drilling fracking dairy intensification gutting the emissions trading scheme. That's not a reset; that's the same old pollution story set on replay. So you have the opportunity on the zero-carbon Act to work constructively for an enduring climate solution but it has to be a climate solution.We've seen 30 years of excuses 30 years of avoiding responsibility 30 years of debating the science but not doing anything about it. We have the opportunity today. We need to make sure that the zero-carbon Act is inclusive of all gases that there are binding climate targets set by the Climate Commission that there's real action. I urge National to act on climate change just like I urge all New Zealanders to have their say on the zero-carbon Act consultations which are happening right now."