Helen’s legacy
The UN has just published the 2006 greenhouse gas data. It will be another two years for us to see the full impact of Helen’s legacy of total rhetoric and no action. But here are how different countries compare between 1999 and 2006.
Helen talked of reducing net emissions to zero. Kyoto is about getting them back to 1990 levels. But surely Helen managed to at least keep them constant? Nope. From 1999 to 2006, this is the net increase (including offsetting with land use and forests) for various countries:
- Sweden -61.8%
- Norway -31.8%
- Estonia -23.4%
- Monaco -21.4%
- Finland -9.2%
- France -6.3%
- Belgium -5.3%
- Hungary -4.6%
- Slovakia -4.5%
- Poland -4.3%
- Denmark -3.4%
- Netherlands -3.2%
- United Kingdom -2.6%
- Germany -2.0%
- European Community -0.9%
- Portugal 0.9%
- Japan 0.9%
- United States 0.9%
- Italy 2.7%
- Ireland 3.0%
- Liechtenstein 3.9%
- Iceland 5.3%
- Bulgaria 6.2%
- Greece 7.0%
- Australia 8.2%
- Czech Republic 8.6%
- Switzerland 8.8%
- Canada 11.0%
- New Zealand 12.0%
- Spain 18.0%
- Turkey 33.3%
Only two industrialised countries (excluding those who are below their Kyoto targets) have a worse record than New Zealand under Helen Clark.
We are also at 33% over our 1990 Kyoto target. The US is only 14% over, and Australia 7% over. The United Kingdom is 16% under.
If Labour try to claim any sort of moral high ground on climate change, just remember these facts. Helen Clark’s record was one of the worst in the world on carbon emissions.