This morning the government will receive an open letter from a number of high profile businesses and individuals....Urging New Zealand to move towards a clean energy future.

It's time for climate action, they say.

Let me take you through some of the signatories:

Fuji-Xerox, Ernst and Young, Sandford, The Warehouse Group, Villa Maria, The Langham, The Body Shop, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, Sir Stephen Tindall, Dame Anne Sell-Mond, Dr Jim Salinger, The New Zealand Nurses Association, Logan Brown, The Salvation Army, Green Cabs, Eco Store....And so it goes on.

The letter was organised by the World Wildlife Fund and will be given to Paula Bennett, the climate change minister today.

The signatories want the government to set ambitious targets to reduce emissions. And also to empower and incentivise Kiwis to make low-carbon choices.

Interestingly, Z Energy is also a signatory to this. Z Energy is on board with us moving more towards a clean energy future.

This year we reported a 23 per cent increase in greenhouse gas emissions for the period between 1990 and 2014, but we have committed -- this is part of the Paris Agreement on greenhouse gas emissions -- to reduce our emissions by 2030.

That's a good first step, says this group but we need to back it up with domestic action.

Businesses and organisations are playing their part, they say, but individually we could do more and the government should be incentivising us to do so.

Next week, Paula Bennett will be in Marrakesh where they'll again be discussing the historic Paris Agreement, so this letter is clearly timed to lobby the minister ahead of that meeting.

The letter says: "With the world at a turning point, we need to grasp the opportunity to move our country to a clean energy future, New Zealand has the natural resources, technology and people to rise to the challenge of reducing our emissions."

It says without the government pulling its weight, we won't be able to make the changes at the pace and scale that's required.

Climate change is an issue, I think, that people either get very exercised about, or they tend to shrug their shoulders and brush it off. It's not an issue for them, right now. It can be difficult to grasp in a tangible sense. The science of it all, understanding carbon emissions, the flawed systems we've tried to put in place to counter it, what will it mean for a country that relies on agriculture....And so it goes on.

The letter concludes "Our beautiful country may be small but we do matter. The whole world needs to act and that includes us. A clean energy future for New Zealand is 100% possible. Lets make it happen."

Just what impact an open letter will have, I'm not sure. In fact, it's easy for the government to politely acknowledge this and then move on.

But I do think we're at a critical crossroads -- we can limit climate change to a tolerable level because right now the window of opportunity is still open to do so. But it won't stay open forever.