Climate Change Response Amendment Bill

As this debate draws to a conclusion in terms of the Committee stage, it is probably fitting to note that about now, at Flemington in Melbourne, horses are lining up and the nations of Australia and New Zealand may well not be listening to this debate. The matter we are debating is absolutely crucial in respect of our future responsibilities on this planet, and we do take those seriously.

I want to address an issue we have raised a couple of times, which is that this legislation is really very narrow. Firstly, in looking at the title and commencement clauses, I say to the Minister in the chair, the Hon David Parker, that the process continues to give us mixed messages. This bill went to the Commerce Committee some considerable time ago. It was rushed relatively quickly through the select committee, then it sat on the Order Paper for 15 months. I have to ask, if this is a crucial piece of business that the Government wants to enact, why the lethargy in the process? I will be very interested in the response of the Minister in the chair, the Hon David Parker, as to why the bill has been sitting on the Order Paper for so long.

I also commend the Minister for saying that agriculture was not evil. We know that it is not evil, but the Minister did not respond to the point I raised about the scientific element of that argument. As my colleague Mark Blumsky said, if photosynthesis locks up carbon in trees, why does it not work with other plant material, such as grass? The science around where one gets the 49 percent figure for good farming activity in New Zealand is an issue that is degrading us in the eyes of the world. Whenever Labour members say that we are the worst contributors in the world in terms of agriculture, and that the figure is 49 percent or 50 percent, I want them to get to the science behind that comment to find out exactly where those figures come from, because I cannot find them. I have challenged officials at the select committee and I have challenged the Minister before on those figures. I have challenged anybody who makes that statement and asked them to give us the detail and the science of where those figures come from. I look forward to the Minister’s response to that in a minute, and I may want to respond again, depending on how he responds, as it is an important point.

Our team on this side of the Chamber has been clear that, yes, we support this, but it is a minuscule element of what we need to do to address the problem. We do not support the Kyoto Protocol in its current form, but that does not mean to say that as a party we are not concerned about climate change. We do not support Kyoto because we do not see it fixing the problem. I will address that point quickly because I do not want it to be misunderstood.

The 1990 model of category 1 countries will make so little difference to climate change that it is virtually immeasurable. It may make a 2 percent to 4 percent difference in delaying the 100-year result—that is about what the scientists say. But in actual fact it will not do that, because those countries that are category 2 and category 3 continue to grow at an astronomical rate. When I read that in China alone a new thermal power station is commissioned every week, and in the last decade it has commissioned, I think, 14 aluminium smelters, then one has to say: “Well, hang on, if we and the countries in category 1 tidy up our act, we actually are not solving the problem.”

So this is not about a placebo. This is not about saying: “Yeah, we really care about planet Earth, and climate change is real so we will just sign up to something that is not going to work.” It is actually much more important than that. Yes, it is about us taking our responsibility, and being engaged in a process that will mitigate the problem—that will actually solve it. Carbon sequestration in trees is a very, very small part of that. While we may have a semantic debate over the figures that are produced today in Nairobi about whether New Zealand is the worst, nearly the worst, or even halfway down, our response has been to rely on thermal electricity when we have sustainables that we could be advancing. I commend the Minister as we have done some stuff on wind turbines, but it is minuscule in terms of our power needs.

I have just a few more points. I raised earlier in the debate the point that if we are going to rely on carbon sinks, then it is more than just fixing up the registry about who owns the carbon. I am not planting trees simply because the returns are not there; the returns are not there because the processing is not there; the processors are not there because of the Resource Management Act and because no processor can now get a long-term contract on electricity. Those are issues that we have to address. We have to address the electricity issue in a sustainable way, and if we really believe that sequestration and trees are the answer, then we have to deal with those.

This bill falls short of doing that. Maybe it is not the vehicle to fix those things, but I say to the Minister that I want to hear how he will address those things as well, because they are crucial.

The member who just took his seat, Mr Roy, asked why it has taken so long to pass this legislation. The answer is that it is because it has taken time to build a consensus. It has taken time to build a consensus not just in this Parliament but outside of it. This legislation was ridiculed by his party when it was first called. It was ridiculed at first reading. It was ridiculed by his party at the Commerce Committee. It is substantially unchanged. It has always been very good legislation since it was first promoted by the Hon Pete Hodgson. He was ridiculed for his support of it. The member’s party still ridicules Kyoto, despite its being the most effective policy instrument that there is yet in the world to moderate greenhouse gas emissions.

The reason that this legislation has taken time to progress is that it was necessary to build a consensus outside of this place, outside of Parliament, in New Zealand. Through our own efforts, but also with the assistance of a bit of luck and the likes of An Inconvenient Truth raising people’s consciousness of climate change issues, that consensus within the community has now been reached. As a consequence of that, we are seeing support for this bill that did not exist before, from parties such as the member’s. The only thing that has changed in the intervening period is not this legislation—

💬 Eric Roy: It’s changed quite a bit.

No it has not; it is public support. It is public awareness that the issue of climate change is serious and that the very large number of small steps that need to be taken to address climate change ought to be taken, and this is one of them.

It is nice to have this opportunity to follow the Minister in the chair, the Hon David Parker, because I think it is important to put a little bit of fact around the lovely story he was telling us. I have here the Government bill that was reported back from the Commerce Committee. I want to put on record the view of Opposition members on the Commerce Committee. The Opposition members’ view was from New Zealand First, New Zealand National, and ACT New Zealand, and they stated: “Opposition members oppose this bill on the grounds that New Zealand should not be implementing the Kyoto Protocol ahead of our major trading partners.”

That is exactly the reason for the position that was taken by members on this side of the Chamber during the select committee process. So for the Minister to make up a wonderful story with assumptions and presumptions that it was a lot more than that is wrong. It is important to note that our opposition was based on the fact that there was a discussion about writing cheques to Russia, which Kyoto would have enabled, and on the fact that our major trading partners were not signing up, and, therefore, why should we?

I think the Committee is very clear from our talking on the title that we are very supportive of the bill and the work it is trying to do. I think there is some embarrassment from the Government—or there bloody well should be—about the fact that the bill entered the House in 2005 and it is nearly 2007. It is a tragedy that half of the members who sat on that committee are not here now to be part of this process. I suggest that we need urgent action for sure, but at least we are getting there now, and that is important.

National supports the bill. We believe that it provides a sensible system of tradable emission permits, which is important for New Zealand and where we will need to go in the future.

National does support this Climate Change Response Amendment Bill, and I note that my colleague Mark Blumsky has just clarified National’s position throughout the select committee consideration of this bill. I think it is worth restating that although this bill goes some way towards addressing climate change, climate change response is a little more complicated than sequestering carbon through forestry plantation.

It is also worth noting again that in the 1990s we had something like 60,000 hectares of forest planting per annum and a robust export industry for forestry, yet in this Government’s tenure of 7 long years, forestry planting has dwindled to practically nothing. So I think it is worth noting that sequestration is very important, but I would ask whether that is it for the Government’s policy on climate change—a bill that was regarded to be so unimportant that it sat at the bottom of the Order Paper for 15 long months, and that for its select committee process had four members who are no longer in Parliament. We have to wonder how urgently this Government actually views climate change.

The Prime Minister talks about carbon neutrality because, of course, climate change is terribly fashionable at the moment. It is also terribly convenient for the Government because it thinks it gives it an opportunity to “get out of jail” and to get out of some tight political corners of its own making. But I think the Government’s own record on climate over the past 7 years shows that it is tracking backwards in dealing with climate change issues. Although I have mentioned that the amount of forestry planting being done has gone backwards, there are also some other indicators of this Government’s poor record on climate change.

Although the Minister in the chair, David Parker, has some lofty words about how we have some consensus, I also note that Nick Smith, National’s environment spokesman and an excellent colleague of mine, wrote to the Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues, offering to work in a more consensual manner. So far he is still waiting for a reply—some 7, 8, or 9 months after he wrote the letter. National recognises that climate change policy needs to last longer than the term of any Government, which is why we are supporting this bill. It is the only initiative from the Government that remotely makes any sense. Of course, as has been mentioned several times throughout this debate—but I think it is worth mentioning again—there is also National’s excellent blue-green vision for the future, which has been embarrassingly well received in meetings up and down the country.

💬 Eric Roy: They mentioned it at their conference.

It was mentioned at the Labour Party conference—well, there we are. National’s A Bluegreen Vision for New Zealand environment discussion paper featured largely at the Labour Party conference, at which the Prime Minister talked about carbon neutrality.

So let us look at the Government’s record, because talk is fine but we should really look at the record. In the time of this Government—7 years—we have had a threefold increase in power produced from coal. I say to the Minister that I am looking forward to seeing a policy for the generation of energy, as is much of the generating sector in New Zealand. It is interesting, is it not, that when the Minister was a local MP, he not only blocked Project Aqua but sat very firmly on the fence of Project Aqua. During the last 7 years we have had the Government blocking the Hobson hydro power scheme—a renewable power scheme—over on the West Coast. At the same time we have had the Marsden B refinery go from petrol to coal, which is a mighty step backwards and is a record that would be hard to be proud of. And, of course, the Government has commissioned the Whirinaki power plant, which is an oil-fired power plant.

Last week I was at a lunch in Ōāmaru, my home town, at Gillies foundry. Gillies foundry has been a major manufacturing company in Ōāmaru for probably a number of years—up to a hundred, I suspect. At the relaunch of this company, which the Minister of Energy attended, the manager of the new Gillies manufacturing plant commented that it had a bright future in manufacturing for irrigation and other initiatives. The company’s main concern was competition with China, and that concern was several fold. One concern was that China could produce manufactured items such as pipes, valves, and various other items much more cheaply and could import them into New Zealand cheaper than the factory in Ōāmaru could produce them. The manager’s major concern with competition with China was that China is not a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol. I would love the Minister to tell the Committee how the Kyoto Protocol can be a good policy for the future of New Zealand when we are having to compete and trade with non - Kyoto Protocol signatory partners.

Our commitment to climate change needs to be more than carbon sequestration. We support this bill—with amendment—because it makes some sensible changes on carbon sequestration, but we must also make an honest attempt to reduce carbon emissions. Sequestering carbon emissions through forestry is fine, but we must make an honest attempt to reduce carbon emissions, and I do not see anything in the Government’s plans to address that issue. However, it is addressed in National’s blue-green vision for the future.

The answer to reducing carbon emissions does not lie in clobbering farmers. It does not lie in clobbering our export industries. I say to the Minister that we need to remember that we are, in fact, global citizens. We cannot shut ourselves off from the rest of the world and smugly think that carbon neutrality will do the deal, because it will not. I would like to know how the Government plans for us to aim for carbon neutrality without stuffing up our economy, because I fear that that is what it means. Thank you, Mr Chairperson.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment presently.