Background

This document summarises the decisions, tasks, volunteers and discussion about this topic during the National Digital Hui Jan 2019.

Goal

Outlining strategy and tactics for actions beyond April 21.

Summary

Our overall objective is to get the Government to legislate now for net zero carbon emissions by 2025. It is not our job to design the programme to do this, but rather to give Government the mandate to make the necessary sweeping changes.

It is good to have local targets that are meaningful for the region if we do ongoing action, but it’s also good to have some national coordination of when actions will take place. The more coordinated we are with actions at the same time, the better chance we have for good media and level of publicity; otherwise, we risk doing small actions that get nowhere, which are not reported nationally and which have little lasting effect. There must be a clear unified national agreement on what we are trying to achieve, so that the general public know what the overall message is even when we are targeting different places.

We need to assess our strengths and weaknesses as well as the social and economic context of NZ, to work out where the pressure points and resistance points are.

We need to bring together people together. If we are going to change the fundamental political and economic system we need a lot of support and thinking about how we will make it happen.

We need to think about how to make the most of our unique position in New Zealand and in the Pacific.

There was a lot of discussion about theories of change, and how far we want change to go. If we are trying to change the form of our government and economy, we need to understand how they work now and what the alternative options are. Lots of people have already done lots of thinking in this area.

Do we need to push for participatory democracy or a citizens assembly; or do we just trust the government to do it for us? Are we disruptors of government or are we trying to change the government so it works better for us? We need more discussion about this. It was noted that participatory democracy has lots of forms, at lots of levels, and doesn’t necessarily have to be disruptive of government.

Relevant dates:

  • Local body elections.
  • Zero Carbon Act.
  • Interim Climate Commission.
  • Emissions Trading Scheme legislation changes.
  • 2020 election.

Decisions

None

Tasks

None

Volunteers

  • Coordinator: Tamati (Wellington)
  • Team members: Rosemary (Tauranga), Julie (Nelson), Robert (?), Tim (?), Rachael (Palmerston North), Tor (Christchurch), Simon (Auckland)

Get involved

This issue is owned by the Long-term Strategy Project Working Group.

Original notes