And they cheered

While negotiations stumbled on this week here in Lima, my Government cheered on New Zealand’s ever rising emissions. While a climate disaster named Typhoon Hagupit dragged slowly past Metro Manilla, New Zealand’s Ministers celebrated our rising emissions. While our negotiators blithely declared that mitigation was our top priority, my elected leaders laughed and cheered.

There’s even a transcript:

Dr Russel Norman : Has he seen this graph from the Ministry for the Environment, his own Government graph, in which the blue line is going up because the blue line—

Hon Members : Yay!

Dr Russel Norman : It is our greenhouse emissions, you idiots—

They just don’t learn. It is our greenhouse gas emissions. And it is idiocy to celebrate its rise.

One year ago, those very same Government ministers booed and laughed at Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand Co-Leader Russel Norman. Russel’s sin? He quoted Philippines Climate Change Commissioner Naderev “Yeb” Saño’s tearful, heartfelt speech opening the Warsaw talks while Parliament expressed condolences to the victims of Super Typhoon Haiyan.

Let me run you through that again: My Government booed a Member of our Parliament for quoting Yeb, whose own brother was digging bodies out of the ruins of Tacloban, instead of just wittering out meaningless sympathies.

Luckily, Yeb tweeted his thanks to Russel, forcing a small concession that maybe, just maybe, Russel was right.

Last year, they laughed. This year, they cheered. When confronted with the reality that our emissions are blowing through our target of a 5% cut from 1990 levels by 2020, they cheered.

It’s time to hold them to account. Last year, TV3 news exposed two key ministers as climate change deniers. This week’s Parliamentary celebration suggests that several other members of our government at the very least deny the link between rising emissions and more frequent climate disasters, more serious famines, and more innocent people driven from their homes. There’s a gap in their minds between cause and effect.

It’s time to cut the gap.