NZ stengthens its ambition to fail

Oh dear, it gets worse.

"New Zealand is blaming the Kyoto Protocol for its low emissions target," a delegate (from where I couldn’t possibly divulge) just told me at the climate change talks in Barcelona today.

This comment came after New Zealand spoke in Kyoto Protocol negotiations on the emission reduction targets so far committed to by developed countries (remember New Zealand’s is between zero and 20%).  The chair of the negotiations had previously challenged delegates to say how they could increase these targets.  Iceland suggested that it could increase its target if some of the rules changed.  But New Zealand? Our delegation chose to ignore the chair's request to discuss raising ambition, instead embarrassing itself by suggesting there was every chance it would LOWER its ambition.
New Zealand complained about the risk of businesses moving offshore, before stating that New Zealand was "here to do our fair share".  Explain to me how this comment can be reconciled with the fact New Zealand's emissions are going to keep going up under domestic policies?  We are currently doing an embarrassingly modest share of the effort needed to keep global warming below 2 degrees. 

 New Zealand then spoke about the difficulties of splitting its target into domestic reductions, forestry and international offsetting and appeared to blame it all on the Kyoto Protocol. From my seat near the back of the room I could see negotiators laughing quietly and shaking their heads because they thought the explanation was so ridiculous.