Category: Climate Change
The fact that Phil Goff intends funding Labour’s $800 million policy of paying R D tax credits by bringing agriculture’s biological emissions into the ETS two year early in 2013 raises some very interesting questions about the mechanisms of the ETS and its purpose.
In terms of theatre, last Thursday’s election year budget was certainly a polished performance - a nice public relations exercise aimed at pacifying the concerns of voters, while giving little to opposition parties to really get their teeth into. But in terms of a government’s responsibility to improve the country’s economic outlook by boosting jobs, growth and living standards, it delivered little.
It was the British philosopher and MP Edmund Burke who first described the media as the “fourth estate”. During a parliamentary debate in 1787 to usher in press reporting of the House of Commons, he said: “There were three Estates in Parliament, but in the Reporters Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.”
The Emission Trading Scheme was put in place to help New Zealand meet its obligations to the Kyoto Protocol. The ultimate purpose of that Protocol and the ETS is to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases that some say may be causing global warming. While I find it extraordinary that our Government is prepared to impose costs on its people based on nothing more than a theory, the focus of my concern is the way in which the ETS treats livestock emissions of methane. While the debate over global warming may never be finished, the way livestock emissions of methane are treated clearly demonstrates the folly that is the ETS.
Democracy is said to be government ‘of the people, by the people, for the people’. It is meant to protect individual freedom and liberty, since the government’s powers derive from citizens themselves - either through their elected representatives or directly through public referenda. But the system breaks down when those elected representatives in government develop ‘tin ears’, putting the demands of their party – and the bureaucracy – ahead of the public interest.
Bilderberg. Whether you believe it’s part of a sinister conspiracy which will lead inexorably to one world government or whether you think it’s just an innocent high-level talking shop, there’s one thing that can’t be denied: it knows which way the wind is blowing.
When a new supermarket in Mt Roskill recently advertised for new staff over 2,700 people applied for the 150 positions. This desperate situation is being replicated up and down the country. It is symptomatic of an economy in trouble.
The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition has asked the High Court to rule on the validity of NIWA's "Seven Station" New Zealand Temperature Record (NZTR) that features prominently on its website and is used in information it passes on to schools and is also used to support the emission trading scheme, resource consent applications for wind farms and many other key aspects of policies designed to “fight climate change”.
The madness of the Government’s new carbon tax is that New Zealanders will be the only people in the world paying it. It will drive up the costs of living and undermine the competitiveness of New Zealand business for negligible environmental gain. A further concern is its impact on inflation, interest rates and the exchange rate. It will add to the costs of fuel and power and these flow right through the economy to basics like food. This puts pressure on inflation, which in turn drives up interest rates and the kiwi dollar. The Government’s carbon tax is a classic example of the way the Government is making things tougher for the productive exporting sector. The worst aspect of the carbon tax is that it will not make one iota of difference to New Zealand’s emissions. Nick Smith 2005
Calls are mounting for the next phase of the government’s emissions trading scheme, due to commence on 1 July 2010, to be deferred. There are strong arguments for a temporary suspension of the scheme.
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