Submission on Zero Carbon Bill

Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill

Submission by Fare-Free NZ editor Roger Fowler (July 2019):

I support the general thrust of the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill with the strongest possible targets and serious and concerted action planning to achieve those targets.

Recommendations

I submit the following proposal as a viable action towards achieving the short term and long term robust targets of the Bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

1. The Government should immediately declare a nation-wide 'climate emergency' to set the country on the equivalent of a 'war footing' to mobilise maximum support for concerted planned action to combat climate change. The government needs to lead a serious response to this climate emergency and discard empty slogans and ineffective piece-meal gestures. The action has to be big and bold to produce a national mind-set turn-around needed to be successful.

2. Recognising that the proliferation of cars and chronic daily traffic congestion in our cities is already causing record vehicle emission levels and hundreds of premature deaths, plus extensive heart and acute respiratory diseases, and that the impact on the environment is rising, the Government should make urgent steps to place public transport into the hands of appropriate elected governing bodies and plan to upgrade all public transports services and infrastructure to cater for a major increase in usage, and to allow for the introduction of fare-free, quality, no-emission public transport in all the main cities. These moves will have a huge 'big and bold' impact of attracting a large bulk of people out of cars and onto quality, modern, integrated public transport and ending chronic traffic congestion - a major source of greenhouse gas emissions.

To support this submission I attach a paper I submitted to Auckland Transport's 'Big Idea' project last year:
https://farefreenz.blogspot.com/2019/06/a-big-idea-thats-too-big-forauckland.html?m=0