There is a very famous phrase: “now is the summer of our discontent”, and I believe that this fits the New Zealand situation perfectly at present.

 

We have a Prime Minister who is yearning to be recognised as a world-renowned Leader from a country that is leading the world in dealing with Climate Change and its effects.

 

Our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern has been jetting around the world like a butterfly, flitting in and out of one venue after another, and of course exempted by virtue of her government position, from the need to worry about climate change effects from all of those flights.

 

It’s not something to be proud of for New Zealand, that our Prime Minister is jetting around the world giving speeches that are in effect totally superfluous whilst at home in New Zealand our population is having to deal with rapidly increasing inflation and a cost of living which is highly accelerated by the government’s decisions around climate change emissions, which are driving up prices across all sectors of our economy.

 

All in all, not a great time for any major experiments in policy; not a great time to tamper with our fundamental agricultural industries by adding a carbon tax with the consequent upward inflationary spiral.

 

Considering the damage that climate alarmism of the present government has done to our oil & gas and mining sectors and considering how critical the demand for energy supplies is at present the world over, it is hard to understand why we should have let the refinery at Marsden Point be shut down at the present time.

 

Why did we attack an industry that could have offered so much advantage to us, that made a real impact on our energy supply?

 

Why are we now importing dirty coal from Indonesia to ensure the lights stay on when we still have ample coal resources in New Zealand that could be provided for this?

 

Should we be asking our government why are we doing this?

Why is our government so beholden to the IPCC and the Great Reset that we lock up a great and abundant natural resource?

 

There is no answer to this question, except the sad one that once ideology takes firm hold in the mind of a government, everything else becomes secondary.

 

And that the ambition of a prime minister to be part of some great global crusade may cruelly lead to neglect or carelessness about the country she actually governs.

 

Now with our agricultural industry, it has so long been hobbled, denigrated, and attacked that some may, sadly, think it’s just business as usual on that front because as everyone knows “Agriculture” is a villain until of course they run out of food.

 

But when that happens, the agricultural industry is suddenly seen as fundamental to our survival as well as being crucial to our economic performance across the board.

 

New Zealand’s agriculture is a great success, a success built on generations of hard work, love of the land, and expertise. Modern agriculture, for those who even have a glimpse of its complexity and sophistication is a real wonder.

 

Given the requirement in section 2B of the Paris Accord which protects food production from the impacts of climate change policies, surely the agricultural industries would escape the oversight and interference of the climate priests. Alas no.

 

The Netherlands is in turmoil because its government is bringing down stringent fertilizer curtailments, which have resulted in a countrywide protest by farmers.

 

Agricultural workers are protesting similar policies in Sri Lanka, to say nothing of Ireland, where farmers are decrying a government plan calling for a 21 to 30 percent cut in emissions from the agriculture sector.

 

Given that agriculture is the mainstay of our national economy and in light of the evidence from those country’s experiences, surely this stumbling, aimless Labour government of ours would not attempt something of the same here?

 

Unfortunately the answer is yes they have. Our government has given notice that farmers have to cut back their emissions.

 

The government has set a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture as part of its overall effort to reduce New Zealand’s emissions by 50 percent by 2030.

 

What kind of madness is this? With all of the global issues affecting our country, why is the government putting in place policies and IPCC-driven mandates that will seriously affect the agricultural sector that provides food security for us and is also our primary income earner?

 

We’re really concerned with the ideological goals that the Labour government has apparently set for New Zealand’s farmers.

 

Energy and food are two essentials of life and security and it seems that this government, based on their socialist ideology, cannot leave the industries which provide both alone.

 

The worst part about this is that we now know that all of our government’s agricultural policies are based on science that is wrong as proven by the UNFCCC declaration last month which stated that their predictions around climate change were in fact wrong and that they were reducing their predicted climate warming numbers by 50%.

 

“The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has announced that it now accepts research showing climate change is expected to reach just 2.5°C – only half as much as the mainstream media has long assumed.

 

In a formal statement, the UNFCCC said the world is “on track for around 2.5 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century”.

 

This new paradigm replaces the long-standing and much-feared presumption of 4 – 5°C by 2021 – which has led to worldwide declarations of a “Climate Emergency” in recent years.

 

Our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern declared a climate emergency and since that time her government has been making decisions, based on the UN’s Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2014 fifth assessment report.

 

These decisions around lowering our greenhouse gas emissions from farming have been based on facts that we now find were actually wrong. The UN has now stated that the figures need to be cut in half.

 

The collapse of long-standing global warming expectations is largely the result of the UN’s belated rejection of the most extreme scenario of future emission levels – known as Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5, or RCP8.5. This unrealistic input to climate models has for many years applied a massive upward distortion to the calculation of likely future temperatures.

 

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has now banished RCP8.5 (and its successor SSP5-8.5) from all its policy-making at COP27. For good measure, it has also dropped the RCP6.0 scenario, and is now focussing on an envelope between 2.6 and 4.5 – a new addition, RCP3.4.

 

Even taken in isolation, the long-awaited abandonment of the extreme RCP8.5 is the most important and consequential climate change story of the last decade.

 

Based on advice from the NZ Climate Commission, prior to COP26 in Glasgow, Minister of Climate Change, James Shaw promised a net 50% reduction of New Zealand’s 2005 gross emissions by 2030. This extremely ambitious, and economically painful, pathway to 571 M tonnes of long-term gases was calculated by reference to BAU global temperatures of 4.5°C by 2100, and relied heavily upon modelling of the effects of RCP8.5.

 

We now know all those calculations were based on wrong assumptions. As were the endless calculations and model runs which underpin New Zealand’s First Emissions Reduction Plan, its First National Climate Risk Assessment and First National Adaptation Plan.

 

Other Government publications such as “Coastal hazards and climate change: Guidance for local government” and interim guidance on the use of new sea-level rise projections, all being heavily reliant on RCP8.5, can no longer stand.

 

The theory was great but like all modelling, when the underlying baseline assumptions have proved to be wrong then the whole theory is no longer supportable and the conclusions of the modelling must be thrown out on that basis.

 

Government’s advisers, acting rationally, will have no choice but to change their minds now that the basic assumptions used in their modelling have been proven wrong, as advised by UNFCCC.

 

Every government promise, every target, every carbon budget, and every quantified policy to mitigate future global warming will now require a thorough review. The models must be re-worked.

 

Many of the government’s recent decisions have been impacted by their interpretation of the climate change scenarios using the worst case predictions which have now been debunked by the UN. Many of their decisions have had a large impact on our increased inflation rates and will carry on doing so for some time to come.

 

So will the government go back to basics and re-work their predictions around climate change based on the latest figures from the UN.

This madness must stop. We should all be challenging our politicians to explain why they and their legions of report writers are still using the discredited worst case scenario as the basis for modelling public policy in New Zealand.

 

All climate change policy should be suspended immediately while the modelling is redone using scenarios based on reality, not fantasy.