The Climate Roadshow, which started in Cape Reinga in the North and Bluff in the South, arrived in Napier on Tuesday 22 September as part of its journey to the capital. The Roadshow is being organised by Extinction Rebellion Aotearoa New Zealand, with support from Aotearoa Climate Emergency. The Roadshow is seeking to put climate action on the agenda for the 2020 Election, calling for:

  • a national declaration of a climate emergency

  • a Citizens Assembly on Climate Change that honours the unique knowledge and role of Māori as tangata whenua through meaningful partnership

  • a green, sustainable, economic recovery from the pandemic

 

Hawkes Bay local Helen Howard will spoke of her climate story as part of the Napier segment of the roadshow. Helen has been protesting to demand action on the climate emergency and has also been taking practical steps to protect the local environment by running projects to encourage native tree planting and the picking up of waste on local beaches. 

 

Helen says, “Our children will bear the brunt of our climate inaction. The problem with the current economic and political system is short term thinking and an obsession with GDP without taking into account both the human and environmental costs.”

 

A Citizens’ Assembly has been a core focus of the Election Roadshow for Climate. Bruce Bisset, a spokesperson for the Extinction Rebellion Citizens’ Assembly working group wants politicians to give consideration to a Citizens’ Assembly. 

 

“Increasingly, citizens are electing not to vote, or even enroll, because they feel our version of democracy is failing them,” Bisset said. “And, given the often-rabid partisan politics we are subjected to, it’s hard to argue with that.

 

“Citizens’ assemblies allow those folk to take a productive part in decision-making and, hopefully, using this tool could work to reverse the worrying opt-out trend which is undermining our electoral system.”  

XR’s working group has spent a year studying the methodology and formulating an “Aotearoa/New Zealand-centric” version of Citizens’ Assembly that gives effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and starts to address aspirational calls for constitutional transformation.