Jacinda Ardern Will Make New Zealand Totally Carbon Neutral, Because That’s What A Leader Does
She announced the bill with the kind of fiery speech Scott Morrison couldn't deliver even in his wildest dreams.
Jacinda Ardern has pledged in the New Zealand parliament that she will make the country totally carbon neutral by 2050.
Really, that should not be a big deal.
After all, the planet is on fire — currently literally. Everything is a mess, food lines are being endangered, and war seems inevitable. Scientists around the world have told us that we have a matter of years, not decades, to get our reliance on fossil fuels under control.
Ardern is in some ways doing the very bare minimum. Any leader that actually cares about the future of human life on the planet Earth should declare an immediate national security risk, and suspend mining and the burning of coal tomorrow, not ten years from now.
In fact, the Prime Minister’s bill has an under-discussed caveat — Ardern has left some leeway for farmers, who, as the folks at news.com.au note, help buoy New Zealand’s GNP. The only way to properly deal with climate change is to take the most extreme approach possible: any blind spots set a dangerous precedent.
But hey, at least it’s something. As is Ardern’s speech, which shows uncommon awareness of the scientific facts from a politician in the year 2019.
“We’re here because our world is warming,” Ardern said. “Undeniably it is warming. We’re no longer having the debate over whether or not that is the case. We’re merely debating what it is we do about it.”
Later, Ardern detailed the exact impacts of climate change.
“We know as well that some island nations will have their clean water sources impacted by a rising sea level and salt water entering into them. On a daily basis they are already seeing those impacts. Our world is warming, and so therefore the question for all of us is: what side of history will we choose to sit on?”
Let’s hope the rest of the world is paying attention.