Jim Salinger: Jacinda's generation picking up the baton on climate

Jacinda Ardern, Leader of the Labour Party. Photo / Getty Images

Opinion

By Jim Salinger

Labour Leader Jacinda Ardern's declaration that "climate change is the 'nuclear-free moment' of this generation" starkly brought to mind a "sign on" to climate change march in Wellington prior to the United Nations Copenhagen Climate Conference in December 2009.

In this march were some of us senior baby boomers (born between 1946-1964) and the remainder were millennials (born between early 1980s - early 2000s). Generation X were largely absent.

More recently there has been a tremendous rise in support of millennials for senior socialist boomers such as Bernie Sanders in the US and Jeremy Corbyn in Britain.
The question arises in my mind, what has happened between the boomers and millennials?

Boomers pioneered raising environmental issues and bringing them into the public consciousness for the very first time. My own awareness was ignited in the early 1970s when some climate scientists at the time were declaring, "the next ice age cometh". I examined climate records from New Zealand and its surrounds, and noticed regional warming.

This was published in the scientific journal Nature with the proposal in Europe and North America that industrial pollution was pausing any warming, whilst the pollution-free oceanic Southern Hemisphere was warming. Subsequent work in 1980 showed the globe was then all warming because of increases in greenhouse gases.

This led to activism by some of us, with briefings of a Labour backbencher, Helen Clark, in 1983 and National backbencher Simon Upton before the Bolger Government assumed power.

I had Sir Geoffrey Palmer as Prime Minister open the first climate change conference of the Meteorological Society of New Zealand on global warming in 1989. At that point we wanted to embark on an ambitious programme of greenhouse gas emissions reductions to reduce any global warming impacts.

Alas, the great ideals from some of us senior boomers were not to be. So what happened?

At that time economically austere boomers emerged in Britain and Rogernomics happened here. The desire was to slash government spending and cut deficits during a time of economic weakness. This emphasised the pursuit of free market economics. Environmental protection did not get a look in.

Support came from many boomers who were sceptical about climate change, and those in big corporates were very influential - as climate change mitigation was seen as "bad for businesses".

More recently junior boomer Bill English placed the priority on budget deficit-reduction. In Australia and Britain this has continued.

All too late, the economic research that supported the austerity push by these boomers has been discredited.

Prime Minister English has confirmed he definitely believes in man-made climate change and plans small changes to the emissions trading scheme that do not "threaten the economy". Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has a similar approach. And senior boomer Trump has pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord.

Now we have the millennials who know that climate change is not a hoax but a deadly serious issue. Data from a University of Texas survey last year found 91 per cent of US millennials agree "climate change is occurring", compared with 74 per cent of boomers.

• Dr Jim Salinger is an honorary research fellow at the University of Otago and deputy editor of 'Climatic Change'.