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Recently, New Zealand declared climate emergency and promised carbon neutral government by 2025
Key highlights
- New Zealand has joined more than 30 other countries including Japan, Canada, France and Britain that have declared a climate emergency.
- The New Zealand Prime Minister said the climate emergency declaration was based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s findings that to avoid more than 1.5 degree Celsius rise in global warming, emissions would need to fall by around 45% from 2010 levels by 2023 and reach zero by around 2050.
- The government also promised that the public sector will achieve carbon neutrality by 2025. Government agencies would have to measure and report emissions and offset any they can’t cut by 2025.
- Nearly half of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture, mainly methane.
- The government of New Zealand also stated that the programme will be backed by a NZ$200 million ($141 million) fund to finance replacing coal boilers and help purchase electric or hybrid vehicles.
- In her first term the Prime Minister passed a Zero Carbon Bill, which sets the framework for net zero emissions by 2050 with an exemption for farming, and banned new offshore oil and gas exploration.
Source: The Indian Express
