Public health researchers have drawn some bleak conclusions from analysis of the Government response to climate change.
"It is likely that New Zealand emissions will not decline significantly, as they need to if we are to cut emissions significantly by 2020 as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recommends," said researchers Nick Wilson and Philippa Howden-Chapman of Otago University, and Ralph Chapman, of Victoria University.
"The situation raises doubts as to the claim that this country acts as a responsible member of the international community or that it is much concerned with its `clean and green' reputation," they said in a paper published in the NZ Medical Journal.
The researchers listed Government actions according to the amount of progress in reducing emissions.
They found "relatively few areas of clear progress, and many areas of either 'no progress', or where government response has gone backwards'."
They listed 15 areas, ranging from subsidies for home insulation to the emissions trading scheme and requirements for Government departments to move to carbon neutrality.
They concluded that since the Government was elected last year, there had been two areas of continued progress, five of no progress, six areas which had gone backwards, one of "possibly backwards" and one of "probably backwards".
Recent medical research had shown climate change was a critical challenge to health internationally.
There was also an ethical obligation on developed countries which had generated most of the existing greenhouse gases, to show clear leadership.
"This is especially so when it is clear that time is running out for the international community to avoid warming of 2degC above pre-industrial levels, the 'guardrail' for dangerous climate change."
New Zealand should particularly be concerned about its environmental reputation because of its dependence on affluent consumers in tourism and food and other exports.
