OPINION: When Jacinda Ardern said this is our nuclear-free moment in 2017, what she really meant was 2025 is our nuclear-free moment.
Even then, you don't have to go nuclear-free. You can just say you'll go nuclear-free and we'll see how we all feel about it then.
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The coalition on Thursday signed a deal with farmers to try to cap their carbon emissions. Only the whole thing is voluntary and doesn't kick in until 2025, eight years after the nuclear-free speech!
It's a rip to the undies for Russel Norman and co.
But to be honest, this is probably the most sensible thing the coalition Government has done in its two years in power. To be fair it doesn't have much competition, does it?
Here's the problem I have with the oil and gas ban, the farming cap, all these punitive measures that hit farmers, productive industries, and rural New Zealand: In our haste, our nobel crusade to be the first, to be world leaders on climate change, we've forgotten to look behind us and realise that nobody is following us.
Is there a point in being first in the world if nobody's shooting for second? Hello China, hello India, hello Trump.
Would the All Blacks really win this weekend if Eddie Jones pulled his boys off the field to drink sake instead?
What's more, we are highly efficient gas and dairy producers, perhaps the most efficient in the world.
If we stop producing these in-demand goods, somebody else will take over. Chances are that could increase global emissions, not lower them.
How's that for a nuclear-free moment?
Ryan Bridge is hosting The AM Show this week.
