NZ 'playing catch up' on climate change action, Jacinda Ardern tells Apec summit
New Zealand is playing catch up in regard to action on climate change, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has told an Apec summit. Ardern made the comments in a panel discussion with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on day two of the Apec CEO Summit being hosted by New Zealand from Aucklands Aotea Centre. The event is a virtual gathering of business leaders, entrepreneurs, academics and political leaders from New Zealand and around the world. Asked about future action on climate change, Ardern said climate change in the Pacific felt very acute because its effects were already being seen. READ MORE: * Covid-19 economic recovery 'full of contradictions', Apec leaders told * President Xi Jinping warns Asia-Pacific must not 'relapse' into Cold War conflict, at APEC summit * New Zealand's hosting of APEC has 'shifted the dial', Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says In the Pacific it is literally those rising sea levels that you can see now, Ardern said. New Zealand had to make a steep increase in its contribution towards action on climate change, she said. We havent done enough until now, and we are to a degree playing catch up. How could we look our neighbours in the eye unless we demonstrate we are doing our bit. Merkel said over the years the distance between scientific understanding and political action on climate change had only widened. She had seen this first-hand having been Germanys environment minister at COP1 held in Berlin in 1995. In order to shift to more renewable energy sources a major technological upheaval was needed comparable to the industrial revolution in the 19th century, she said. Those countries that are technologically advanced and also have the highest living standard have to make the biggest contribution. Germany, which is not an Apec member, could work with Apec nations to help achieve advancements on climate change action, she said. There needed to be improvements in the way climate change, and steps to manage it, were measured, she said. On the topic of leading a country through the Covid-19 pandemic Ardern said learning and adapting quickly had been an important challenge to overcome. She said as quickly as the Government learnt about Covid-19, it shared that information to utilise the skills and resources of the private sector so that it could co-design solutions. Angela Merkel, who has served as the chancellor of Germany since 2005, said it developed a yardstick approach from the outset of the pandemic to ensure it did not overstretch its health system, whereas New Zealand had a zero-Covid strategy. Initially it was successful in managing this, but it quickly realised proactive prevention measures had to be taken. Once you see cases rising dramatically you have to intervene immediately. Exponential growth of cases was and continued to be one of the most challenging aspects of Covid-19, Merkel said. Exponential growth was not something that was well understood and acted on in society, which explained why the climate change crisis had been neglected, she said. You have to act at a time when it is not yet visible. Germany was now in the midst of a fourth wave of Covid-19, she said. People may believe it is a thing of the past, but we have to realise it is not over. Ardern said sharing Covid-19 information with the public was an important part of her Governments strategy. With this pandemic, because of how quickly things were moving, we were often socialising the information in real time. Sharing information allowed the public to see what the solutions needed to be, such as flattening the curve, she said. But modelling showed that even flattening the curve would result in the healthcare system being overrun, she said. We talked openly about that and brought people on a journey with us that wed need to do more than that. That meant we had some cohesion around our response. Sharing that information with the public helped people understand why lockdowns had to occur, she said. The same occurred when it came to sharing information with businesses about the parameters within which they should operate, such as the need for social distancing. Businesses designed the way they needed to operate to meet those standards, and they did a phenomenal job of adapting very quickly. Merkel said Germanys residents and businesses took responsibility upon themselves to contain the virus. It had a high vaccination rate, but there were still pockets of the population it could not reach, she said. To a certain extent you also, as a member of society, have the duty to be vaccinated to protect yourself and to protect others. Both leaders praised the global response and cooperation to the pandemic. Ardern said in bilateral conversations with country leaders their respective Covid-19 responses were discussed. We need to do the same for all of those global challenges that we face, not least climate change. Each of us has something to share and impart and learn from someone else. Other heads of state already to have spoken at the event include Chinese President Xi Jinping , Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, President of Korea Moon Jae-in, President of Viet Nam Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and President of Indonesia Joko Widodo. On Saturday Ardern will chair a virtual meeting of Apec leaders, with a focus on navigating a recovery out of the pandemic.