Generation Zero

Generation Zero is a youth-led climate action organisation. We mobilise New Zealanders to engage with decision-making and campaign for intergenerational climate justice. We campaign for smarter transport, liveable cities and independence from fossil fuels by lobbying government, business and other actors to advance climate change action. It's time for New Zealand to step up.
Campaigns
-
We want more homes for all in Wellington - pass an ambitious Spatial PlanWe have a crisis. Wellington can be a city built for people – with thriving communities, green spaces, and well designed homes and buildings that improve everyone’s lives. But Wellington’s housing crisis is hurting the people who live here. Decades of inaction mean house prices and rents are out of control, while badly maintained properties rot from underneath us. People are being priced out of the city, spending hours each day commuting while the city sprawls and our emissions rise. This crisis is different for everyone. Migrants, the LGBTQI+ community, and Pacifica & Māori are discriminated against in the rental market. Disabled people have very little choice of accessible homes. Everything is too expensive. We need more homes, but the Council hasn’t listened Last year, the Council asked the public for feedback on its 30-year Spatial Plan to make space for more housing. It didn't go far enough. The housing crisis needs serious long-term solutions like drastically increasing the number of homes. So we told them we needed more townhouses. More apartments. More homes close to where people work, live, and play. We asked them to make it easier to demolish bad quality homes and build new ones by reducing the protections on colonial character houses - these “character” houses are overcrowded, falling apart, and making people sick. They push out the real character: our young people, renters, and creatives who make this city great. The Council didn’t get feedback from everyone in Wellington. They heard a lot from homeowners and people with money who benefit from the status quo. But what about everyone else? 84% of young people (18-24) told the Council they want more housing and demand more ambition. The Council should be listening to the people who are experiencing the housing crisis, not the loud few pulling the ladder up behind them. We are asking the Council to do the right thing. The Spatial Plan should allow Wellington to plan for the future so that new generations of Wellingtonians can share the city we love. But to create that city, we need our Council to act. Now’s our chance. Ngā mihi nui, A City for People, Generation Zero, and Renters United We have come together to achieve a long-term solution to our city’s housing crisis. Contact: Wellington@generationzero.org.nz1,403 of 2,000 SignaturesCreated by Generation Zero
-
TVNZ: End ties with Mobil and commit not to take money from fossil fuelsPublic broadcasting has the opportunity to do good in Aotearoa - helping us have informed kōrero about the issues that matter. Even ethical advertising can be positive for the world. Yet every evening, more than 800,000 people turn on the TV to tune into 1 News for an informative take on the day gone. But when the sports section comes up, viewers are bombarded with a dominating Mobil logo, and a message proudly declaring: “1 News Sport, brought to you by Mobil.” Make no mistake; Mobil NZ is synonymous with ExxonMobil - the international giant oil and corporate monolith. ExxonMobil has known about climate change since at least 1982.[1] Back then, their own report predicted CO2 level models that are extremely accurate to the present day. Many of ExxonMobil’s former lead scientists have testified to how Exxon management spread doubt about the dangers of climate change setting a model for other oil companies to follow.[2] One of their early chief scientists, Martin Hoffert, said “Exxon was publicly promoting views that its own scientists knew were wrong, and we knew that because we were the major group working on this.”[3] ExxonMobil knew about climate change from its own top-notch research groups - even taking sea level rise into account while building their resource-sucking, earth-polluting oil rigs - all while spending many tens of millions lying to the public and funding politicians advocating against climate action. that would affect its bottom line. Yet despite all this, TVNZ says it has “no ethical concerns” in regard to its Mobil sponsorship. That is ludicrous - if they don’t have ethical concerns with a corporation knowingly destroying the planet, committing human rights abuses, and funding climate denialism; then who do they have ethical concerns with? TVNZ has the means, and as a state funded media organisation, the responsibility, to end its contract with Mobil - whose continued and willful ignorance of the climate crisis is a slap in the face to our Pacific neighbours, who are seeing their homes and sacred graveyards destroyed by intensifying storms and sea surges - a direct consequence of criminal policy from corporates like ExxonMobil. There’s a precedent for this. In January of last year, Britain's second-biggest newspaper, The Guardian, announced an outright ban on taking money from companies that extract fossil fuels. TVNZ has the opportunity to follow in their footsteps and show Aotearoa that taking money from climate criminals in 2021 is not acceptable. In these times everyone needs to be part of change and protecting Papatūānuku. Generation Zero is calling on TVNZ as a publicly funded media organisation to end its association with fossil fuels and follow an ethical sponsorship policy. Sign on to join our call! Feel free to contact adam@generationzero.org.nz for any questions or queries! References 1-http://www.climatefiles.com/exxonmobil/1982-memo-to-exxon-management-about-co2-greenhouse-effect/ 2. https://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=110126 https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/10/opinion/exxons-climate-concealment.html?_r=0 3 https://youtu.be/Ms-vVR7o-nM2,623 of 3,000 SignaturesCreated by Generation Zero