Issue #14: Green lights ahead

On a sustainable, healthy transport future

Kia ora, and happy Tuesday! We hope you’re settling out of daylight savings time ☀️

This week we’re focusing on transport. While James Shaw said car culture is a huge part of kiwi living, we at Climate Club think that cars are only a small part of what fun, safe, affordable, and sustainable domestic travel can look like. With the opening of Transmission Gully, let’s look at how we turn around our dependence on cars, in order to reduce emissions quickly and meaningfully while enjoying the many co-benefits that come from public and active transport.

The most clicked link from last week’s issue is the Oxfam petition to curb agricultural emissions, which is now nearly at 2000 signatures.

A neat thing we wanted to highlight: thanks to one of our readers, @matvega, for giving us a shout out on Re:News’ post about the latest IPCC report! And welcome to the new readers who have joined our community through it 🥰

What can you do today?

🐝 If you have 5 minutes: Bus-t a move

• Particularly with the rising petrol costs, free public transport continues to be one of the best ways to help people switch to cleaner transport.
  Action: Join the Greens in calling for free public transport for everyone

• New Zealanders fly an awful lot per capita, and part of the problem is the lack of options for long-distance travel, like passenger rail (read more on that here). Here’s the Save Our Railways campaign - at a time when we need to be investing in rail, KiwiRail is ending some of their most significant same-day intercity services.

  Action: Follow Save Our Trains NZ on Twitter
  Action: Share your stories of rail, or your vision for the future on social media, use the hashtag #SaveOurTrains (scroll to the bottom for more tips & other actions). Here’s a neat example:

Rex Widerstrom @RexWiderstrom

@laurie_winkless @thefutureisrail I would always use the train between work in Auckland and family in Wellington. Time to make the mental adjustment, to relax, to read and to think about people & places other than work & home. Unless it's a less-than-a-day business trip, why would you choose anything else?

🐇 If you have 15 minutes: Give feedback on the feebate

• The Clean Cars Discount came into effect on April 1, and it’s a significant step towards reducing transport emissions - so let’s show our appreciation & encourage our MPs on further climate action. For context, Labour & Greens voted for the feebate, while National & Act voted against, and you can tailor your email accordingly.
  Action: Send a quick thank you email to MPs about the Clean Cars feebate. You could email your electorate’s MP, or just one of the MPs who have been involved:

  Hon Michael Wood, Minister for Transport: m.wood@ministers.govt.nz

  Hon James Shaw, Minister for Climate Change & Environment: j.shaw@ministers.govt.nz

💃🏽 If you have 30 minutes or more: Make transport be EVen better

• The Ministry of Transport is asking whether we should incentivise electric cars, vans and trucks to support climate action. We support this idea, but also want to point out we can’t just rely on EVs as the only transport solution to climate change - it won’t reduce emissions fast enough, and doesn’t address other negative impacts of car dependency such as safety (casualties & serious injuries), tyre microplastics, noise pollution etc.
  Action: Submit on the Changes to the Road User Charges using this guide

• Save the date: If you’re in Pōneke/Wellington, join Fridays for Future on April 22nd for their Earth Day action. They’ll be meeting at Midland Park at 12pm and marching to Parliament.

Opportunities

• Mindful Money is looking for a Media Relations volunteer, to help with media queries, press releases, and in-depth stories. If you’re interested in journalism, marketing, analysis & commentary, and would like to contribute your skills to a flexible, remote-friendly volunteer role in the climate space, apply now here!

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That’s all for today, folks 👋🏽 Thanks for taking action. Enjoy these visionary drawings by artist Chris Dews of what Tāmaki Makaurau could look like, which help us imagine our future more freely, dream more boldly.

See you next week, 

Dhanya, Emily, and Jenny from the Climate Club

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