Bayly Andrew: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBayly Andrew: General Debate[Sitting date: 21 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7419. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): I am very pleased to be talking about National’s approach to climate and environmental issues particularly as I am a member of the National Bluegreens caucus which does comprise a significant number of National MPs. National has been active in this space and rightly so. As the Governor of the Bank of England recently said in the northern hemisphere over the last 30 years it has been the warmest since Anglo-Saxon times and atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are at levels not seen for 800 years. It is not surprising that insurance losses from weather-related events have increased from the 1990 levels of about $10 billion per annum to about $50 billion per annum over the last 10 years.This Government understands this dimension and has put together a whole raft of measures to deal with climatic and environmental issues in New Zealand. My colleagues have previously talked about it and the Hon Dr Smith talked about what we are doing in the freshwater and oceans arena and around clean air initiatives as well as other initiatives such as dealing with waste and cleaning up contaminated sites. Of course we heard from the Hon Maggie Barry and the Hon Nicky Wagner about conserving our environment through an excellent range of initiatives around protecting our natural flora and fauna. I do like the terms “battle for the birds” and the “war on weeds”.Hon Maggie Barry: Understandable for a military man.ANDREW BAYLY: Yes. Today I want to focus on climatic changes and the initiatives that we have put in place around clean energy and electric vehicles. For the forthcoming UN conference on climate change in Paris we have already committed to a target for reducing gas emissions to 30 percent of 2005 levels to be achieved by 2030. This is meaningful—contrary to a lot of thought and comments. For instance Canada put in place exactly the same targets and Australia and the US have put in a target of 26 percent to 28 percent to be achieved in roughly the same period of time.It is also interesting to note that our emissions as a country have risen from 71 million metric tonnes in 1995 to 85 million metric tonnes in 2005 but have decreased back to 81 million tonnes at the moment. Part of the reason for that reduction was that this Government put in place the new emissions trading scheme which came into place on 1 July 2010. Although the emissions trading scheme system and the pricing has fluctuated significantly—although I do note that it is currently up just under $7—the volumes traded on our emissions trading scheme have actually been relatively constant at about 18 million tonnes per year which is quite a significant component of the 81 million tonnes that we generate every year. But as most of us are aware 50 percent of our emissions are generated by the agricultural sector and it is pleasing and really good that this Government has invested heavily and shown a lead in terms of sponsoring research into emissions from the bovine sector.It is also important in terms of carbon sequestration that the Government has committed another $22.5 million over the next 6 years to encourage new forestry plantations. The remaining 50 percent of our emissions largely come from transport and energy. We as New Zealanders should be really proud that roughly 80 percent of all our energy produced in New Zealand comes from clean energy sources such as geothermal hydro clean and photovoltaics. This puts us up amongst the top four nations in the world. The recent announcement of the closure of the two power plants at Huntly—the coal plants—and the gas-fired power station at the Ōtāhuhu South Auckland plant will further help us to achieve our clean energy target of 90 percent by 2025.When you think about the $1 trillion that has been invested over the last 10 years around the world this is why it is important that New Zealand continues to encourage these new technologies. The other exciting area—that I personally find really exciting—is what is happening in the transport sector. Only just this morning the Hon Simon Bridges made an announcement that the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority has put in place a scheme to allow fleet managers to assess the total cost of diesel electric vehicles and we have got good moves in New Zealand to implement and adopt clean energy in electric vehicles.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.