Graham Kennedy: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGraham Kennedy: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 07 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12439. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]9.Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green)to theMinister for Climate Change Issues: Does he agree with the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor that “climate change is happening now”?Hon TIM GROSER (Minister for Climate Change Issues):Yes and I personally think this report is the best compilation of science that I have read in recent years from any source.Dr Kennedy Graham: How does he reconcile DrGluckman’s statement with the statement of the Minister of Finance who when asked in March this year whether climate change was real replied: “It may well be.”?Hon TIM GROSER: It may well be—yes indeed it may well be—and I do not see any need to reconcile those statements at all.Dr Kennedy Graham: How does he reconcile this with the statement of the Minister of Science and Innovation who when asked in March this year whether human-induced climate change is happening replied that “It’s open to debate really actually by a whole range of experts.”? [Interruption ]Hon TIM GROSER: Well as my colleague below me has just said we would need to look at the full quote. But the underlying point is this: this Government is treating this as real. This Government acknowledges that there is some room for genuine scientific argument around the metrics around the pace of time around global warming potentials and a host of related science issues. But the underlying point I can assure the member is that yes we are treating it as real—of course.Dr Kennedy Graham: How can he claim that his Government is treating it as real and taking meaningful action on climate change when it has scrapped the moratorium on new fossil fuel generation made cuts to climate research funding scrapped the biofuels sales obligation scrapped car fuel efficiency standards and weakened the emissions trading scheme so much that the price of New Zealand Units has now plummeted from over $20 in 2009 to a couple of dollars today?Hon TIM GROSER: The price of carbon in the international market is functionally unrelated in any real sense to New Zealand’s emissions trading scheme and the member knows this. In respect of specific action I could reel off a whole host of actions this Government has undertaken from investing $42 million in advanced biofuels to putting in place a whole series of new guidelines to help councils manage adaptation—and I could probably spend another half an hour on my feet on this matter.Dr Kennedy Graham: Is the Minister worried about the impact of New Zealand’s lack of action on climate change on our clean green image and international reputation given that we have the worst emissions track record among developed countries and we are the last to enter a formal target for 2020?Hon TIM GROSER: Right now I am much more concerned about our image through rather more natural events such as the one we have been debating yesterday and I am not the slightest bit concerned about our position on climate change in relation to that matter.