The poor response to the challenges of climate change by the NZ Government and by all other political parties, is the reason for the existence of the Climate First party. Both the Green party and the Opportunities party have the goal of net zero emissions by 2050 or soon after. But the public in general does not understand that these goals are nowhere near good enough and in fact fall far short of what is required to stop global warming of more than 2 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures.

What the world and New Zealand needs is not an emissions level target by a certain year, but a carbon budget, within which we must stay. This is Climate First’s approach.