Nau mai haere mai — welcome to your weekly newsletter.

Today Jacinda Ardern will officially declare a climate emergency in parliament, joining many other countries (and local bodies) that have already done so. The PM has acknowledged it is more symbolic gesture than tangible policy, but it is also one way to allow her government to be held to account over its record and action on climate change. As AUT’s David Hall and his fellow authors argue, though, the very word “emergency” carries a lot of semantic baggage – including the implication of state power overriding the rights and wishes of ordinary people.

And yet, there is no doubt New Zealand needs to lift its game on reducing carbon emissions and start living up to the letter and spirit of the Paris Agreement. As Massey University’s Robert McLachlan explains, our comparative performance has been largely woeful, and the time has now arrived to give proper effect to the institutions and mechanisms in place to cut emissions and to phase out fossil fuels.

Finally, the announcement this week that WorkSafe would be laying criminal charges against 13 parties involved in the Whakaari/White Island tragedy might not have been a total surprise, but the inclusion of GNS Science among them perhaps was. However, if it leads to a better understanding of how volcanic activity is monitored and predicted, Auckland University’s Shane Cronin suggests, it might at least have some longer term benefits.

There’s much more here and on our homepage, so thank you as always for your support. Until next time, mā te wā and all the best.