One of the things hip and cool governments are doing these days is “declaring a climate emergency”.
There tends to be a Macbeth-like twang to these speeches,
“…full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
New Zealand’s left-leaning Labour government just came out with its own modern version:
“The motion was put forward by the Prime Minister and was for a government declaration of a climate emergency.”
What made me giggle though was the following chain of events:
“Today the first business that Parliament managed after Question Time was a Government Motion.
“This one was ‘on notice’ meaning that everyone had it in advance, and so could prepare their responses to it. Useful. Because this one would also be debated.”
However…
“…the written motion did not include specific policy proposals, so it may have come as a surprise when the Prime Minister began outlining some.”
Lol.
“So, with action in mind, today, as a government, we are also announcing the Carbon Neutral Government Programme that requires government organisations to be carbon neutral by 2025. We must get our own house in order.”
“The specifics included phasing out coal powered boilers in the state sector, and forcing crown agencies to buy electric or hybrid vehicles.”
You can just see the opposition muttering, Bastards Bastards Bastards, over and over to themselves at this point, under their breath, naturally.
“Motions are usually signals of intent and not actual proposals. So the specifics may have caught opposition speech writers on the hop - like the National Party’s new climate spokesperson Stuart Smith.”
It gets funnier.
After the Prime Minister’s speech, Stuart Smith responded (to the written motion, not to the speech he’d just heard):
“We are committed to the Paris Agreement and to achieving net zero emissions by 2050, but declaring a climate emergency is nothing but virtue signalling. Symbolic gestures just don't cut it.”
Lol.
Despite the specific details presented in the (oral version of the) speech, the opposition parties then voted against the motion.
Would a third “lol” be a step too far?
[Cover photo of James Shaw, leader of the Greens. Credit: VNP / Daniela Maoate-Cox]