Graham Kennedy: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGraham Kennedy: General Debate[Sitting date: 07 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17579. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green): Yesterday the United States released its national climate assessment report. Its main message is that climate change is not a distant threat but a clear and present danger. To quote the report: “Climate change once considered an issue for a distant future has moved firmly into the present. Americans are noticing changes all around them. Summers are longer and hotter and periods of extreme heat last longer than any … American has ever experienced. Winters are generally shorter and warmer. Rain comes in heavier downpours though in many regions there are longer dry spells in between.” This follows the latest UNFifth Assessment Report which advances the same conclusions at the global level. “Thedebate over climate evidence is over.” to quote one of the lead authors of the US report. Except that there never really was a debate over climate change—or at least there should never have been.Climate science is not a matter of subjective political judgment. It involves natural processes where the scientific method applies with hypotheses and evidence self-correcting to a higher level of confidence. The scientists sounded the alarm in 1988. The international community formally identified the danger in 1992. It launched its first response strategy in 1997. Then in 2005 the then Opposition leader John Key advised the world that he was sceptical of global warming. Coming to power in 2008 he began weakening New Zealand’s response strategy assisted by a cohort of troglodytes determined to undermine any purposeful climate policy.New Zealanders would be able to report similar experiences with climate change as those of the Americans—recent storms and floods droughts and fires and sea level rise that is already occurring. But there is no report. The Government has no interest. Last sitting week an eminent group presented a petition to Parliament urging the Government to undertake a risk assessment of New Zealand. Not one National MP was on hand to receive the petition. The petitioners above all appealed for a cross-party accord on climate change. An hour later I highlighted the petition in general debate. Not one National MP acknowledged the petition.Judith Collins spoke about the economy law and order health and welfare just as Jonathan Coleman has just now—pretty much everything that matters to ordinary Kiwis as she put it with exquisite ignorance of the petition that had just been tabled. The ever-prescient David Bennett contented himself with the humble view that the Green Party represents a vision that has gone. It represents he said a vision of the past. IanMcKelvie enthused that it was another great day for provincial New Zealand because it was raining everywhere except he cried the lowerRangitīkei. Significant rain he warned again with unwitting irony will be needed very soon. And he was kind enough to explain why “For those who do not understand this …”tupping will not be as productive with less rain.What has to occur to bring this ideologically blind Government to its senses? During the last dismantlement of the emissions trading scheme in this House I accused John Key and TimGroser of the moral crime of ecocide. I make that charge again today because these leaders are wilfully maintaining a response strategy that condemns New Zealanders to a future that undermines our economy including agriculture.Last weekend the UN Secretary-General said this: “The planet is sending us clearly a message that nature is now sick. We must listen. That is why I am saying to world leaders: ‘Don’t be on the losing side of history. Change is in the air. Solutions exist. The race is on. It’s time to lead.’ ” John Key and Tim Groser are in fact leading on the losing side. New Zealand’s net emissions are projected to triple between 1990 and 2030. The rate of increase is higher than global emission projections. Global projections are expected to breach the 2 degree threshold and land us in danger territory—somewhere between 2.6 and 4.5 degrees. But if the world emitted at the rate New Zealand is projected to the global temperature would rise by 5 to 7 degrees—truly catastrophic. This is how New Zealand under John Key is doing its fair share. The man should be ashamed of himself and his Government.