What is our country doing?

I read an article this morning that made me proud of our government and my country. As a small country it can be difficult for us to achieve some things, but energy efficiency is not one of them and in fact we are leading the world in renewable energy sources being the second highest in the OECD and only behind Iceland with 74% of our country's energy being renewable.

The government wants to make this even higher by 2025 aiming for 90% in a new New Zealand Energy strategy released in parliament today. It said that they were looking at ways to develop and support geothermal and marine energy in New Zealand.

Having strategies and goals such as these are going to help New Zealand reach its goal of lowering green house gas emissions to 50% below what they were under 1990 by 2050 (this goal was set in the Emissions Trading Scheme). However the government has said that it would be willing to commit to 20% by 2020 if an international agreement came about, putting pressure on other nations to reach the same level of commitment to the environment as we have.

The government believes that investing on strategies and plans such as these now are worthwhile as there will soon be a huge economic boom for renewable energy sources and New Zealand will have them and will be able to reap economic rewards - proving that a nation does not have to suffer economic loss in order to invest in a cleaner country.

For more information see the article: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/5530208/Government-reaffirms-renewable-energy-goal