Jim Salinger: Climate change should be a 'nuclear moment' for Millennials
Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read. A bushfire burns at the Apple Fire in Banning, California. Photo / AP On August 20 at the launch of the 2017 election campaign, Jacinda Ardern declared that climate change was "my generation's nuclear-free moment". However, during the Covid-19 crisis there is little evidence that it is the Millennial Prime Minister's nuclear moment. If there is no reset shortly, New Zealand will have missed the golden opportunity in our economic and environmental policies in transitioning to a carbon-zero economy. Despite Covid-19, human-induced global warming continues. The annual global temperature figures released by the UK Met Office, Nasa and Noaa for 2019 confirm that the decade 2010-2019 was the warmest on record, and also show that the past five years were the warmest in the 170-year series. Higher average temperatures are the result of human activities that release greenhouse gases. The trends of warming show that the effects of climate change are continuing beyond year-to-year fluctuations in temperature. The past decade's (2010-2009) mean temperatures were +0.92C above the 1850-1900 averages. A recent analysis of the last summer's record Australian bushfires by the UK Met Office Hadley Centre found that these would be normal under a future planetary warming of 3C. Heatwaves continue in Siberia this northern summer. During this June's heatwave, Verhoyansk the northern Pole of Cold (which has measured a temperature as low as -68C) recorded a temperature of +38C on June 19. More subtlety in New Zealand: bananas now successfully mature in Northland and kiwifruit can no longer crop successfully in northern climes through lack of winter chilling. New Zealand also had a climate extremes shock over the weekend with the deluge of over 200mm in 10 hours in Northland - an event with at least a recurrence interval of more than 100 years - devastating the Whangarei district. It is a well-known scientific principle that warmer air holds more water vapour, which grows very rapidly as temperatures increase. So, it is expected that in general, air will get moister as the Earth warms provided there is a moisture source. This causes more intense rainfall and snow events, which lead to increased risk of flooding exactly what we are seeing now. Although Covid-19 rages outside New Zealand, we have the luxury of having eliminated the virus from our shores, allowing the country to introduce a climate reset to the economy. On a per-person basis, New Zealanders are significant emitters of greenhouse gases the 21st highest contributor, and fifth highest in the OECD. However, the package of measures in this year's Budget shows politicians are still not treating climate change as the millennials' "nuclear moment". Our legislators seem to have forgotten our economy lives in an environment, and without the environment, the economy does not exist. It is a prime opportunity to transition to a carbon-zero economy but there is little signal in the Budget packages. Zoomers, or Generation Z, are becoming increasingly annoyed with lawmakers. Adelaide Charlier, 19, from Belgium observes that legislators who adopted the language of climate action without following up with urgent policy measures were worse than climate deniers. With colleagues at Britain's Climatic Research Unit we could detect human-induced warming in the climate record at 1980. In 1988 Geoffrey Palmer opened New Zealand's first climate-change conference. In 1990 we published the first climate-change reports on examining effects on New Zealand and prevention measures to reduce carbon emissions. Finally, as a last gasp, the fifth Labour Government brought in an Emissions Trading Scheme in 2008, which was subsequently decimated by the National Government. Agriculture was given a pass and was not required. The only positive initiative has been the establishment of the New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre in 2010. Recent inaction has occurred because of the nature of the coalition Government: New Zealand First trumped an introduction of a feebate where low carbon emission vehicle prices are reduced, and those of high emissions vehicles increased. Politics has also stopped decent emissions reductions from agriculture. In effect New Zealand governments have now squandered three decades of inaction on climate plans. The reset Covid-19 provides us is to make a break from the bad old habits of 2019 and before, and usher in a rapid transition to decarbonising our economy. If we do not, humanity finds itself on planet Earth with a climate becoming increasingly hostile for humanity's citizenship. It's time the New Zealand Government acted. We must implement. The Zoomer- Millennials' nuclear moment is now! - Dr Jim Salinger is a climate scientist and honorary research fellow at the University of Otago. Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read. New programme for preschool children about to be trialled in New Zealand.