I’m currently in New Zealand for a few weeks and while nothing much seems to have changed while I’ve been away, one interesting announcement has been made this week which hasn’t got as much attention as I would have expected.
New Zealand have announced they won’t be signing up to the second edition of the Kyoto Protocol when the first agreement expires next year.
The government says they prefer a world-wide deal, that would include all developing countries, rather than just the developed countries in Kyoto I.
Of course, that kind of a deal isn’t anywhere close to being agreed I, and while the government will continue to pursue their own domestic carbon emissions goals, this week’s announcement wouldn’t have been imaginable even just a few years ago in New Zealand.
Another sure sign, along with the complete absence of the issue from the US election, that the the climate change debate really is dying down.
