Climate Change Confusion

The SST editorial mainly hits the mark with cynicism and comments about Labour’s sudden desire to out-green the Greens. But there is one bizarre part as they talk about how hard it is to reduce carbon emissions. They say:

Green leader Russel Norman rightly asked how an anti-nuclear government could allow its state super fund to invest in the uranium industry. Clark has pooh-poohed the charge and Michael Cullen, in his drearily predictable way, says he won’t “micro-manage” the fund. It is becoming seriously difficult to see just what Cullen stands for aside from fiscal rectitude and self-congratulation. Withdrawing from the nuclear industry is not micro-managing and it is not a micro-issue. It goes to the heart of what the government stands for. So why doesn’t it put its money where its mouth is?

If the Government is serious about saving the planet by reducing carbon emissions, then the last thing it should do is reduce investments in nuclear power. If Europe and the US abandoned nuclear power, the effects on the environment would be massive and inevitably result in way more carbon emissions.

Oh also read this article in which the Climate Change Ministers defends having a huge gas guzzling car. Excuses would have been reasonable a few weeks ago, but with the PM claiming NZ must aspire to reduce net carbon emissions to zero, then one has to have leadership by example.