Sustainable future within reach, says Labour

Helen Clark wants to make New Zealand "carbon neutral" and a world leader in sustainability but such an achievement may be decades away.

The PM's ambition takes Labour into an area traditionally associated with the Greens and one in which National has recently shown renewed interest.

She hopes to use a combination of carrots and sticks to achieve energy efficiency and sustainable land-use management.

Helen Clark is seeking to link Labour not just to environmental sustainability but also to economic and social sustainability.

"Why shouldn't New Zealand aim to be the first country which is truly sustainable - not by sacrificing our living standards but by being smart and determined?" she asked.

"We can now move to develop more renewable energy, biofuels, public transport alternatives, and minimise, if not eliminate, waste to landfills. We could aim to be carbon neutral."

Energy Minister David Parker said that more details of Labour's sustainability measures could be announced within a month.

But for the ordinary New Zealander there would be greater focus on renewable energy sources - hydro and wind, for example - as opposed to thermal energy such as gas, coal and oil.

And they would mean the introduction of new fuel sources for the vehicle fleet, which would be a combination of bio-fuelled and electric cars - though to be carbon neutral the power source for electric cars would have to electricity from renewable sources rather than fossil fuels.

The policy shift suggests that the Government will try to engage the public more on what ordinary people can do rather than on New Zealand's target under the Kyoto Protocol, which was to reduce carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2012, something that is looking unlikely.

Mr Parker said that under current policy, New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions from energy would increase by 30 per cent over the next 25 years.

That explained why so much work was being done on new policy.

"It is not in New Zealand's interests that that future come to pass."

A "carbon neutral' goal would be more ambitious than the Kyoto target, Mr Parker said, and New Zealand could be a world leader.

He was not sure whether the Government would set a target date for New Zealand to become carbon neutral. At present 70 per cent of our energy sector was renewable, meaning only 30 per cent produced emissions.

But in the transport sector New Zealand was 100 per cent non-renewable, which required long-term change "so you are taking more than 30 years to achieve that".

Helen Clark said the movie An Inconvenient Truth by former United States Vice-President Al Gore, who is to visit New Zealand next month, had made a big difference to perceptions.

"I think there's a much greater public awareness now at the size of the challenge.

"News, yet again, that Australia is facing its worst drought ever - that rings home to people.

"The fact that you get these horrific summers in Europe which see tens of thousands of people die ... [and] the extent of the erratic weather patterns in our own country, people are switching on to the fact that there is a pretty big problem here."


Carbon neutral

* Being carbon neutral means reducing emissions to a point where they are balanced by compensating measures, such as planting new forests, or in simple terms doing nothing to worsen climate change.