Sarah vs the Govt – thoughts after first day in court on climate targets

On approaching the High Court yesterday I was first struck by the sign outside that said “System Change not Climate Change” held up by a pressure group. Why didn’t I call my book this? It’s a damn good slogan. Crowds soon gathered and the media arrived to interview Sarah Thomson, the law student taking the case on climate targets.

When a 24 year old takes the Government to court it has got to be newsworthy and important. When her lawyer Davie Salmon started up, the years of preparation showed and a very long friendly conversation between Salmon and the judge began. Huge piles of documents were behind the young woman judge and I couldn’t help thinking this judge has the power to rule that the government revisit its emission targets and she looks five foot nothing. We have to stand up when she leaves the court.

The argument that New Zealand is small therefore we don’t need to do much was thoroughly demolished, especially with Salmon’s suggestion that if the boat is sinking everybody bails, no matter how small their bucket.

He took us through the difference between the target of 1.5 degrees vs 2 degrees of warming. Reality strikes when you realise that, although he said he wouldn’t exaggerate, he used the word ‘catastrophic’. Yes beyond two degrees it is catastrophic and James Renwick had reminded us outside that it is only five years till we get to 1.5 degrees. David Salmon persuasively argued that you shouldn’t rely on technologies that don’t exist yet to take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. He said it was like telling someone to keep smoking in the hope someone would invent a cure for lung cancer. One cannot predict inventions. Therefore no real weight can be put on that hope.

He impressed on the judge the comprehensiveness of the AR5 summary of climate change knowledge worldwide. The sheer size and scale of the work was noted and the fact that it is always out of date before it is published. He said, “I don’t want to make you read it all Your Honour, is scary reading about floods and famines, mass migrations and conflicts and some of it is dry and detailed”. She replied, “I’ll be happy to read it”. He said,”Maybe not happy by the time you finish.”

Sarah and her boyfriend were sitting in front of me in the gallery. Occasionally she would lay her head on his shoulder. When later she put her arm around him I wondered if that couple would ever have children and what sort of world will it be for them. Will their mothers grieve for the grandchildren they wish they had? But I do know they should be immensely proud of their children and of themselves for bringing them up to have such a huge sense of responsibility.

My thoughts, as always, went to economics. Where were the economists in this court? I couldn’t see a soul.  What would they say if they were here? Yes, Salmon talked about Business-as-Usual scenario and I thought that even Helen Clark’s government did nothing to stop the intensification of dairy because it feared the economy wouldn’t grow enough and they would be out of government. And so we get agricultural emissions rising.

And Naomi Klein realised the economy was at war with the climate.

So I thought what would it really take to change the economic system from growth dependent to a healthy one? How many really want to face up to the money system and that the land tenure system (and therefore the tax system) simply have to change. It’s a big shift for people’s mindsets. What causes the growth imperative? It is the combination of privately owned land system with an interest-bearing debt money system controlled by private banks. A match made in hell. Maybe we have to get to hell before we wake up.

We have the choice of catastrophic climate change or economic collapse. Both are horrible. Please, someone, focus on changing the political economy before it is too damn late!!

I kicked myself that I hadn’t written a flyer for my book and taken it with me.