Mōrena, and happy Tuesday!
COP27 has kicked off this week in Sharm el-Sheikh. The theme this time is climate finance for loss & damages. Watch Al Gore’s fantastic opening speech here.
Meanwhile in NZ, another form of climate finance is hot on the news (excuse the pun) - the pricing of agricultural emissions. The consultation for this is closing soon, see below!
Agricultural emissions are still totally exempt from the ETS (a quick explainer on that here), a key climate policy lever, in which most other industries participate. This effectively means they receive a $3b subsidy from consumers via the rest of industry within the ETS. If you’re curious, here’s a tweet on the numbers behind ag emissions and a great deep dive on how the proposed pricing is likely to play out globally.
According to Oxfam, the latest proposal to tax farm-level emissions falls short in many ways, and is forecast to only reduce methane levels by 4%, as opposed to the 10% minimum committed to in legislation.
When it comes to climate change, we are all on the same side and need to be supporting each other. Farms and rural areas have already been hit hard by storms, floods, and droughts. This will continue unless we reduce our emissions. The true impacts of not paying for emissions will fall onto many of the farmers themselves, and particularly their children and future generations.
So with that in mind, let’s get submitting!
What can you do today?
The most-clicked link from last week’s issue was 350’s fossil free bank email templates.
🐝 If you have 5 minutes: Let’s be outstanding in our field
Synthetic nitrogen fertiliser drives intensive dairying, kills rivers, and contaminates our drinking water. The Climate Change Commission advised the Government to directly target the massive fertiliser companies (specifically, Ballance and Ravensdown; not the farmers!) for their climate-killing synthetic nitrogen fertiliser, but the Government is still focusing on reducing emissions at the level of individual farms. This is an indirect, ineffective, and unfair way to reduce agricultural emissions.
Action: Join the call to make fertiliser companies pay directly for their fertiliser emissionsThe best way to ensure emissions reductions is to reduce the herd size. The Netherlands did this, and we can too - activists have been demanding it for years!
Action: Sign the halve the herd petition from Greenpeace
🐇 If you have 15 minutes: Push play on vital transport
Three vital, shovel-ready, community-consulted transport projects in Tāmaki Makaurau are at risk of being paused with the new leadership in Auckland Council and Auckland Transport. Women in Urbanism have written an open letter outlining the clear reasons why these projects must be accelerated, not paused.
Action: Share this open letter on social media, or use as inspiration send Auckland Council or Auckland Transport your own email supporting these projects.
💃🏽 If you have 30 minutes or more: Could brie udder-whelming if we don’t submit
Submit on the consultation to price agricultural emissions in a way that will meet our climate targets, and support farmers to take action to protect our future and those of our future generations.
Action: Use the Oxfam submission guide to have your say on pricing agricultural emissionsPōneke: Action Station’s Climate Accountability Now campaign is delivering their petition for more public visibility and accountability on climate action at 1pm on November 8th at the Seddon Memorial outside Parliament
Pōneke: Jacinda Ardern ran on the “Ours Not Mines” campaign years back, but is still allowing new mines to be created in New Zealand.
On November 9thOn 23 November, Parliament will be considering a law which would protect conservation land from new mines. Join the protest at Parliament on Wed 23 November9 November.
Wins!
Another win from the deep sea mining campaign - Germany has joined New Zealand and France in the call to pause seabed mining. Here’s a follow-up action: tweet your opposition to test mining happening right now in the Pacific.
That’s all for today, folks 👋🏽 Thanks for taking action. Enjoy this video of cycling activists (protesting private jet usage) being unfruitfully chased by Amsterdam police on foot!
See you next week,
Dhanya, Emily, and Jenny from the Climate Club
Update on the No New Mines protest! The CMA amendment bill (no new mines) is now due for its first reading on Wednesday 23 November, so the team has decided to postpone tomorrow's event at Parliament to 12pm on the 23rd, rather than the 8th!