New Zealand pledges carbon-neutral government by 2025, declares climate emergency

New Zealand promised its public sector would become carbon neutral by 2025 as it declared a climate emergency on Wednesday, a symbolic move that critics said needed to be backed with greater actions to reduce emissions.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the climate emergency declaration was based on theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's findings that to avoid more than 1.5 Crise in global warming, emissions would need to fall by around 45 per centfrom 2010 levels by 2023 and reach zero by around 2050.

"This declaration is an acknowledgement of the next generation. An acknowledgement of the burden that they will carry if we do not get this right and do not take action now," Ardern told lawmakers in Parliament.

After an hour-long debate, a majority of parliamentarians voted in favour of the declaration. The main opposition National Party voted against it, saying it was nothing but "virtue signalling."

Opposition climate change spokesperson Stuart Smith said the declaration was hollow.

"Today's performance from the government was a triumph of politics over practical solutions, and of slogans over substance," said another opposing lawmaker, David Seymour.

New Zealand joins 32 other countries including Canada, Japan, France and Britain that have declared a climate emergency.

Ardern, who returned to power in October delivering the biggest election victory for her centre-left Labour Party in half a century, has called climate change the "nuclear-free moment of our generation."

In her first term, she passed a Zero Carbon Bill, which sets the framework for net zero emissions by 2050 with an exemption for farming, and banned new offshore oil and gas exploration.

Nearly half of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture, mainly methane.

Greenpeace says agriculture must be tackled

The government on Wednesday promised the public sector will achieve carbon neutrality by 2025. Government agencies would have to measure and report emissions and offset any they can't cut by 2025.

The program will be backed by a $200-million ($182million Cdn) fund to finance replacing coal boilers and help purchase electric or hybrid vehicles.

WATCH | UN report highlights gap between countries' climate promises, energy plans:

UN report highlights gap between countries' climate promises, energy plans

4 years ago

Duration 2:35

A report from the UN has found countries around the world are far off their goals for combating climate change under the Paris Agreement. Global fossil fuel production is actually increasing by about 2 per cent.

Greenpeace welcomed the declaration, but challenged the government to follow through with policy and action.

"For Jacinda Ardern's climate emergency declaration to be more than just words, that means tackling New Zealand's largest source of climate pollution: agriculture," said Greenpeace agriculture and climate campaigner Kate Simcock.