Jacinda Ardern Has Taken Greta Thunberg's Trash Talk Pretty Well

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has responded to criticism by climate activist Greta Thunberg that accused the nation’s government of lacking ambition on the issue of climate change.

Following New Zealand’s declaration of a climate emergency earlier this month, and its pledge to have a carbon-neutral government by 2025, local publication Newsroom ran an article suggesting that the government still isn’t doing enough to meaningfully address fossil fuel emissions.

The writer of that piece, Marc Daalder, argued that “the declaration of a climate emergency is just virtue signalling if it isn't backed up by immediate, radical action to reduce emissions.”

Thunberg shared that article to her 4.4 million Twitter followers on Sunday, quoting a line from the piece that stated “in other words, the Government has just committed to reducing less than 1 percent of the country's emissions by 2025.”

“This is of course nothing unique to any nation,” Thunberg added, alongside the hashtag #FightFor1Point5.

Ardern addressed the tweet on Monday and defended her country's climate change policies.

“Whilst I haven’t seen the tweet, it’s been described to me as a reference to our public service goal of 2025,” Ardern told reporters. “I would, of course, give the context there that, if that was the sum ambition of any government, then that would be worthy of criticism.

“It is not our sum ambition,” she added, “and it is not the totality of our plans on climate change. But again I think that it’s actually for us just to get on with the business of fulfilling our obligations and expectations.”

New Zealand declared a climate emergency on December 2, alongside a $NZ200 million pledge made at the start of the year to purchase electric or hybrid vehicles for public servants and phase out 200 coal-fired boilers used in public service buildings.

Further to that, a parliamentary motion last year set up a Climate Change Commission tasked with putting New Zealand on a path to net zero emissions by 2050. It is one of only a few countries in the world to have a zero-emissions goal enshrined in law.

On the point of whether Thunberg should have done more research before tweeting, Ardern said “I’m not going to pass any judgment. But equally I think it’s only a good thing [that] there are people out there continuing to urge ambition in action.”

Editor’s note: A previous version of this article suggested that the New Zealand government’s $NZ200 million decarbonisation fund and Climate Change Commission were announced at the same time as the declaration of a climate emergency. It has since been updated to reflect that both the fund and the Commission were announced earlier. We regret the error.

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