New
Zealand declared a climate change emergency on Wednesday, stating that its
public sector would become carbon neutral by 2025, news agency Reuters reported.

According
to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, the declaration was based upon Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change’s findings, which indicated a requirement of emissions
to be brought down by 45% from the 2010 levels by the year 2023, and reaching
zero by the year 2050.

The
centre-left leader said that New Zealand has to acknowledge the threat.

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“This
declaration is an acknowledgement of the next generation. An acknowledgement of
the burden that they will carry if we do not get this right and do not take
action now,” Reuters quoted Ardern as saying.

Most of
the parliamentarians voted in favour of the declaration, while the centre-right
opposition, National Party, voted against it, terming the declaration as ‘virtue
signalling’. At the end, the declaration was passed with 76 moves for the motion
and 43 against it.

With
the move, New Zealand joins a group of 32 countries including Britain, France, and
Japan – who have declared similar emergencies.

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In her
first term, Ardern had passed a Zero Carbon Bill, which ensured net zero
emissions by 2050, and on Wednesday, which turned for the public sector into 2025.

According
to Reuters, there is also slated to be a NZ$200 million fund for replacing
existing coal boilers and purchasing hybrid or electric vehicles.

Greenpeace
noted that Ardern’s 2050 plan excluded one of the country’s major greenhouse
gas sources, Methane.

“For
Jacinda Ardern’s climate emergency declaration to be more than just words, that
means tackling New Zealand’s largest source of climate pollution: agriculture,”
Reuters quoted Greenpeace agriculture and climate campaigner Kate Simcock as saying.