Climate Change - our generation's nuclear moment

New Zealand has joined 32 other countries in declaring a climate emergency. At the same time the Government has promised all its departments and ministries will be carbon neutral by 2025.

"Government agencies will have to measure and reduce their emissions and offset what they can't in order to achieve carbon neutrality,” said Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. "The public sector needs to be and will be an exemplar that sets the standard we all need to achieve by 2050.”

This warning sign sits beside the beach at Mount Maunganui.

The Carbon Neutral Government Programme requires the immediate purchase of electric or hybrid vehicles to start replacing the Government’s petrol car fleet. Government buildings over 2000 square metres will need to meet a new energy efficiency standard by 2025 while new builds and leases will need to meet Green building standards.

Professor Suzanne Wilkinson, from Construction Management at Massey University says while an excellent initiative, key questions on cost and whether the industry had the capacity and capability to deliver on this had yet to be answered.

Image credit - Pixabay.

"Currently the industry knowledge is lacking on how best to “green” buildings and this lack of knowledge and training has hampered development of skills to respond,” says Professor Wilkinson. “People think “greening” buildings costs more (and this is usually true) because we are adding in something and not realising the benefit until much later. Developers don’t necessarily want to pay for features that they don’t have to pay for, as they will not benefit from the costs.

"Clients/owners need to know what to ask for, and they currently don’t have this knowledge. There have been no incentives to input sustainable features into buildings (such as grey water systems, water tanks, solar panels, additional insulation) and as a result they have become “luxury” items and not “must haves”.

Image credit - Pexels.

“Becoming luxury items has led to “niche” or “specialists” seeing an opportunity to charge more, which has increased the perception of cost. Because this is not mainstream, there are few trained people in an already resource stretched industry."

In the climate emergency motion to the House Ardern said it was based on science and recognised the advocacy of New Zealanders in calling for action to protect the environment and reduce the impact of human activity on the climate.

It also recognised the devastating impact that volatile and extreme weather will have on New Zealand and the well being of New Zealanders, on our primary industries, water availability, and public health, through flooding, sea level rise and wildfire damage. It noted the “alarming trend in species decline and global biodiversity crisis, including the decline in the Aotearoa indigenous biodiversity.