Fitzsimons Jeanette: General Debate 
Fitzsimons Jeanette: General Debate 
[Volume:641;Page:11576] 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. I must say that a moment ago I thought Gerry was beating the gun and had already engaged in the general debate. 
New Zealand disgraced itself last week in the international media in Vienna. According to reports published worldwide we lined up with the countries that opposed a non-binding target for OECD countries to reduce their greenhouse emissions by 25 to 40 percent by 2020. Yesterday the Prime Minister refused to answer my question about whether she or her Cabinet had approved this negotiating position. Instead she passed on that question to the Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues David Parker who did not answer it either. The Minister fell back on the good old United States formula that he would neither confirm nor deny the reports. He told us that New Zealand was willing to commit to binding targets but he did not tell us the nature of those targets. Are we looking at targets that go down for emissions or targets that go up? 
I want to tell the House why this proposal of 25 to 40 percent by 2020 matters. These are not just numbers. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which consists of the world’s best scientists on climate change these numbers give the world the best chance—not certainty but the best chance—of keeping global warming below 2 degrees. Above 2 degrees we may be into catastrophic climate change that is unstoppable no matter what we do. This is a tipping point and it is very close. Above 2 degrees we could be into unstoppable droughts floods hurricanes crop failures acid oceans and a billion or more climate refugees milling about the world looking for a place to live. New Zealand is not immune to any of those disasters so I was hugely disappointed to read that we had lined up with those who oppose taking this kind of action. 
This week the Prime Minister leaves for APEC and she is very proud to have got on to the APEC agenda the issue of climate change. It is helpful only if the APEC discussion takes us forward. APEC is not the place where one normally discusses climate change. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is the normal place to do so. The convention met in Vienna and it meets in Bali in December. 
Last week a leaked draft of the communiqué that is to be discussed at APEC made its way into the Australian media. The draft shows that the APEC discussion will indeed take us backwards. The leaked draft undermines the principles established at Kyoto and it provides aspirational non-binding targets that would see emissions continue to climb from all countries because the reductions would be linked to the rate of economic growth. Developing countries are currently refusing to take targets at all. That is entirely understandable when we take into consideration that the starting point for negotiations is that a country with 4 percent of the world’s people and 25 percent of the world’s emissions gets to negotiate from that point whereas a country like China with 25 percent of the world’s people and roughly similar emissions is meant to take that as a starting point. The only framework that will get developing countries on board and lead to a robust convention that can save the climate is one of equity where entitlements are based initially on population. 
New Zealand could break the deadlock at APEC if it wanted to. The Prime Minister could turn up there in the next few days and advocate for a population-based commitment after 2012. It was encouraging that the Minister acknowledged in the House today that population must be a factor. The question is what actions our negotiators will take at APEC. Will the Prime Minister be allowed to make a bold move on behalf of a global agreement and say that it is simply not right that 4 percent of the world’s people can continue to be entitled to a quarter of the world’s emissions? We are waiting to see what happens.