Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. It's raining outside but you wouldn't know that in here. You'd actually never know the state of the world or the state of the rest of Aotearoa New Zealand in here in this Chamber. There's a guy standing in the rain with a few friends who have joined him. He's been there for 77 days now. His name is Ollie and he's been there for now three months outside of Parliament calling for us to declare a climate emergency. Ollie is the CEO of a company that he can run remotely from Parliament's lawn. He's 55 years old and he's got five children. Ollie is just a regular New Zealander who's asking for this House to do the bare minimum and acknowledge the reality of urgent and immediate action required to set up sustainable ongoing work to tackle global warming.He's invited nearly every parliamentarian to go out and speak to him about the importance of climate change and this climate emergency but next to none of the representatives in here have. Because next to none of you have gone out there to see him—maybe because it's been raining and windy and these seats are more comfortable—I've brought his plea in here. This whiteboard is one that he brought on day 30 to keep track of the number of days that had passed whilst we've been ignoring him. His simple request is that we declare a climate emergency now. We have a responsibility to tell the truth as representatives of this country the least that can be expected of a House of Representatives with access to science research and evidence.Overwhelming international scientific consensus gives us a handful of years to act. The climate is changing whether we like it or not. It's time for us to act and to change as well because if we do not act to reduce greenhouse emissions we will trigger irreversible feedback loops. If we do not act our polar icecaps will melt to the point that they can no longer mirror the sun's rays back out of the planet's atmosphere meaning more heat is retained and those icecaps melt more and more sun's rays are continued to be contained within our atmosphere. If we do not act this planet will continue to exist but we won't.This is the science and if politicians in this House don't trust me they can listen to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. If they don't trust international scientific consensus they can listen to the more than 50 New Zealand scientists who sent all of us an open letter calling on this Parliament to declare a climate emergency. If they don't trust the literal science then they can look inside their own caucuses because every political party in this Parliament has said that they accept the fact of climate change. The fact is the truth is that it requires urgent action. If you don't trust or retain the positions that you have spoken about publicly in this Chamber then look to our nation's children because thousands of them have marched in the streets to demand that we put a stake in the ground to be held accountable to act on the climate emergency. A few weeks ago our very own youth MPs in this Chamber declared a climate emergency and after that the vast majority of them sent us an open letter asking for us to follow their lead.The effect of a declaration of a climate emergency is a bald-faced statement of intent. If we can't even say the words if we can't look Aotearoa New Zealand's scientists in the eye if we can't look our children in the eye—heck if we can't go out and stand on Parliament's lawn for a few moments to chat to a guy who has spent three months asking for us to do this—and we say looking them in the eye that we have heard all of them then what on earth is the point of this place? This is not leadership. This is an impediment to progress. It takes more energy to block a climate emergency than it does to declare one. Human beings created this situation and the measure of our leadership and our integrity will be whether we can put aside silly politics and act.