The recent Pacific Islands Forum (aptly acronymed PIF) was an egregious conga-line of Pacific tinpot despots cocking a snook at Australia and holding out their hands for Chinese communist cash. And kicking up her heels for all she was worth was the antipodean Queen of PIFfle, Jacinda Ardern.
Ardern smugly declared that “Australia has to answer to the Pacific” on climate change. With her unrivalled penchant for self-righteousness, Ardern further asserted that “we will continue to say that New Zealand will do our bit…we have to”.
The reality of Ardern’s dodgy action stands in shameful contrast to her high-falutin’ rhetoric.
New Zealand farmers won’t have to enter the country’s emissions trading scheme until 2025 and will then get a discounted rate of 95 per cent under a climate change deal struck with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
Agriculture is New Zealand’s single-biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for nearly half of its total. Far from “doing her bit”, Ardern is pulling a swifty, in a desperate bid to buy votes.
Ms Ardern said the ‘He Waka Eke Noa’ deal was about creating change that “will stick”.
“For too long politicians have passed the buck and caused uncertainty for everyone while the need for climate action was clear,” Ms Ardern said.
She said, as she frantically passes the buck, furiously shuffles the shells and artfully avoids taking any action at all.
The deal had origins in an industry proposal put by several peak bodies, including Dairy NZ.
“We are grateful you have engaged with us and listened to us,” Dairy NZ chief executive Tim Mackle said.
Environmental group Forest and Bird said the move was a step in the right direction “but the change is far too slow”.
As European governments know only too well, the sight of farmers’ tractors blockading city streets is never a good optic. Ardern knows full well that emissions reduction would cripple New Zealand’s vital agriculture industry. She is deceitfully buying off a politically sensitive industry.
Environmentalists are seeing right through her games.
Greenpeace …[said] Ms Ardern’s government had rolled over for the primary sector and “sold out” Kiwis.
“The government has buckled to lobbying pressure from the diary industry and big agri-business,” campaigner Gen Toop said.
“Agriculture is our biggest climate polluter. An emissions trading scheme without the sector in it is a joke and won’t be able to combat the climate emergency — the greatest threat humanity has ever faced.”
theaustralian.com.au/world/nz-farmers-trumpet-win-in-do-nothing-pay-little-climate-deal/
Farmers would be right to ark up, though, if Ardern had in fact imposed a scheme that would force actual emissions reductions. Because New Zealand’s emissions are trifling. China belches out New Zealand’s annual emissions in just under two days. A “meaningful” emissions reduction scheme would cripple New Zealand’s major export industry for absolutely no gain.
But that’s beside the point: Ardern has nailed her little rainbow flag to the climate bandwagon. She has jeered at Australia for allegedly failing to take action. Yet she is deceitfully avoiding taking action, while blowing her cheap tin trumpet as some kind of climate warrior.
There’s a word for that: Hypocrite.