World leading experts have responded to the Global Climate Report

New Zealand Members of the World Meterological Organisation have issued their professional responses to the 2018 Global Climate Report, and these stress the need for us to redouble our efforts to achieve a Zero Waste future.

Professor James Renwick, climate scientist and Head of the VUW School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences, comments: “The globe is currently running a temperature of about 1°C above pre-industrial levels. To rein in the warming at no more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial, global emissions need to halve by 2030, and go to zero by 2050. Yet, emissions increased to record levels in 2018! Policy-makers must really take on board that climate change is an existential threat to global society, to the global economy, and to all ecosystems on earth.

Professor Jim Salinger, Visiting Scholar, Penn State University, has said, “We’ve seen Queensland Groper in the Bay of Islands, Northland, 3000 km out of range, snapper in Milford Sound in Fiordland, and massive mortality in the aquaculture fisheries of the Marlborough Sounds. These are a harbinger of climate in the latter part of the 20th century if we do not take action to reduce emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels and the production of greenhouse gases from other sources such as waste and agriculture immediately.”

The very high level of New Zealand’s waste emissions combined with potency of Methane in climate destruction means that Zero Waste plays a vital role in stopping catastrophic climate change.