KEY POINTS:
The Green Party's agonised indecision about whether to support Labour's proposed Emissions Trading Scheme is, in microcosm, the story of the species' failure to face up to climate change.
The party's co-leader, Jeanette Fitzsimons, this week effectively asked the public to tell it which way to vote on the scheme, which it has serious misgivings about.
Labour is desperate to get the relevant legislation passed before the election, for fear that it could become a major fish-hook in coalition bargaining talks if National does not win the votes to govern alone. With National having spurned a bipartisan approach, Labour was left courting the Greens and NZ First.
Some around Parliament are muttering that Fitzsimons' move is brinkmanship, designed to strengthen the party's hand in negotiations, but such an interpretation is probably uncharitable given the Greens' demonstrated preference for principle ahead of political pragmatism.
The Greens have made significant progress during negotiations - notably on incentives for home insulation - but they are anxious that, in supporting legislation they regard as imperfect, they will betray both their principles and their core constituency.
The boilerplate answer to the party's dilemma is that that the practice of politics is one of tactical compromise. In showing itself to be a reliably pragmatic partner of Labour, the Greens could keep alive the possibility of a Labour-led, centre-left coalition Government after the election; in spurning legislation that does not fulfil all their expectations they risk looking like purist ideologues, aloof from and irrelevant to the hard business of governing.
But the danger is that, if the ETS passes with Green support, the main parties - and the country - will sit back and regard the job as done.
The Greens rightly object that the scheme as it stands does not address the threat boldly enough, that the cost is falling too much on consumers and not enough on polluters and that the agriculture and transport sectors are being protected from the scheme's requirements for too long.
The fact is - the dwindling band of dissenters notwithstanding - that the pace of climate change is outstripping the human race's response to it. As a result we risk becoming, like a rabbit trapped in a truck's headlight beam, paralysed by our own inaction.
An online survey, whose results were reported this week, suggests as much: the poll found that one in 10 New Zealanders believe it is too late to do anything about climate change - alarming news for anyone trying to spread the message that everyone can do their bit.
Their pessimism is shared by experts: the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said a year ago that we had passed the point where catastrophic climate change was avoidable. But that does not mean we cannot act to mitigate its effects.
For too long, major party policies have focused on protecting our brand in international trade and minimising the effect on industry and agriculture on the grounds that it would cost us too much to do more. But as the Stern Review and other research has starkly shown, the cost of not doing enough is much higher.
The Greens are right to continue acting as the nation's conscience and holding out for meaningful change. Recycling soft-drink bottles is not going to be enough.
